Code “9”: the Cold Case Posse’s big lie

I have debunked so much demonstrably false “birther evidence” that I sometimes lose perspective about levels of “bunk” and levels of “demonstrable.” Based on the reactions of others, I may have done something last year that applies to something high on the “bunk” scale today as well as high on the “demonstrable” scale amounting to what Joe Biden might call a BFD, and the smoking gun showing the Cold Case Posse fabricated evidence and lied.

The race of Barack Obama’s father is shown as “African” on the birth certificate, but next to that is a penciled number “9” that indicates “not stated.” The code is wrong, proving that the form is a fake.

Of course, when I heard the stuff about the “9” I knew Zullo was way off track. I wrote an article last March about the race code on the form in my article, Decoding the long form (Part 2). You see, when the long form came out in April of 2011, I searched for a definitive answer to what the penciled notations meant. In my days in public health, I had occasion to do quite a lot of searching for specification documents at the CDC and I know my way around its sites and subdirectories pretty well. What I found is that the most recent coding specifications published were for 1968 (see index). The document is the Natality Tape File for Calendar Year 1968. Being intimately familiar with vital statistics in my former job, I knew that specifications change every few years, and that I could not rely on 1968 specifications to read 1961 data.

Being a careful investigator, and not one to jump to conclusions too often, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on May 2, 2011, with the Department of Health and Human services for the 1961 specifications document. I received my response to request 11-00673 in August of 2011 and subsequently scanned it and made Tape File Information 1960-1961 natality Tape Files for the United States available on this web site, and today I uploaded it to Scribd. The document is also embedded at the end of this article.

What we know from viewing the Cold Case Posse video is that Zullo used the 1968 tape layout manual and based his entire argument on how “not stated” was coded in 1961 with a “9”. The problem is that in 1961, code “9” represented “other nonwhite.” One might have excused this as a mistake, a bit of sloppy research from someone not qualified in the field, but the video repeatedly stated that the image they showed was from the 1961 manual, when it was not. Here is a screen shot from the Cold Case Posse video that the narrator describes as the “1961 vital statistics instructions manual.”

It’s pretty obvious from the smudges on the page that both of these are copied from the same original 1968 document. The Cold Case Posse lied. (An anonymous poster on YouTube, William Rawle, first noted that the video showed the 1968 manual.)

Here are the real 1961 codes from the document embedded at the end of the article:

I’ve written a good deal about the “African” response on the Obama birth certificate. The short version is that parent’s race is what the parent describes themself to be. In 1962, the Kenyan Census used the category “African” to describe black Africans (other examples were European and Arab), so it is very likely that Obama Sr. would have used this term for himself. It would have been wrong for the coder to have changed what Obama Sr. said, and so they correctly chose the code “9 – other nonwhite.” We know very specifically that all states used this code (except New York) based on the footnote:

Now I’m going to pat myself on the back for this, since I did the extra work to file the FOIA in 2011, simply for the purpose of understanding the long form birth certificate and having the background information I needed to serve the readers of this site. At that time I had no idea that my research would prove useful in exposing an outright fraud at the Daily Pen Blog last March, and that it would prove fraud at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case Posse too. Sometimes diligence is rewarded.

Update:

I proved using publicly available government documents that the Cold Case Posse showed a 1968 code table, and called it 1961. However, my FOIA result is not available on any government web site that I know of. Some might say that the 1968 codes are also right for 1961 and my table and document is an elaborate (!) fake. However, I can rule that out. The 1961 Vital Statistics of the US – Volume 1: Natality (VSUS) in table 2-4 has an instructive footnote:

The Cold Case Posse code table doesn’t have codes for Aleut and Eskimo; they are lumped in with Indian. It would be impossible to perform this tabulation using the table the Posse claims was in use. My authentic 1961 table has separate codes for these.

Update 2:

Further research has shown conclusively that the 1961 Federal codes were not used on Hawaiian certificates, nor were the 1968 codes. Hawaii used their own codes. The central thesis of this article remains correct: the Cold Case Posse lied about having the manual, and instead presented a fake one.

Update 3:

More recently Mike Zullo has said that he didn’t actually use the 1961 manual, but rather had to rely on the 1960 manual since the 1961 manual hadn’t been published at the time Obama was born. The codes he actually used were from 1968, not 1960. Also the 1960 and 1960 codes were the same.

Update 4:

I was finally able to get a copy of the 1961 statistical supplement from the Hawaii Department’s Annual Report. It reveals that there was no category for “black” or “negro.” They are lumped under “Other Race, ” which is code “9.”

635 Responses to Code “9”: the Cold Case Posse’s big lie

Great work. I hope this gets picked up by the local media in Phoenix and the wire services who seem to have taken an interest in this. As Ricky Ricardo would say “Jerry Corsi and Mike Zullo have some ‘splainin’ to do!”.

Has anyone else pointed out there is a smiley face on the CCP document? It must be a forgery!

So, what can be done regarding Zullo’s lies? Lying at a press conference (book promotion) is probably not a crime. If he were a real officer, I suppose you could file a civilian complaint with Internal Affairs, but he isn’t. Maybe you could forward your report to the DA or AG and see if they are willing to do anything.. You could also send it to the US attorney, since he is already involved in an investigation of Arpaio.

It would be sweet to see a bogus investigation of Obama ending with a real smack-down of Arpaio.

I think it’s time for someone to put together a report refuting all the Posse’s claims to send to the posse, Arpaio, and Phoenix news outlets (CBS 5 included!), if for no other reason than to ridicule Arpaio.

But then I remember no one really cares about this anymore… thankfully.

Somewhere, in some volcano lair, there is a well tanned man with a porn-stach shaking his fist going “Curse you, Doctor Conspiracy! Curse you and your usage of factual information! I’ll win next time, Gadget! Next time!”

But… but… but… if this is correct Zullo and Arpaio are incompetent lying racists…

All this just supports what you said before: these b******ds will believe any speculation if it fits their fantasies and fill the gaps with wild speculation but they’ll reject the clear and solid evidence that refutes their nonsense with implausible fabrications. I imagine they’ll claim next that the 1961 manual supplied to you is a forgery.

Or perhaps that it is genuine but the 1968 one was forged just to make them look stupid… as if they would need help with that!!

They’re problem is that a black man is President. it destroys their whole sense of how things should be. No amount of refutation will keep them from clinging to the teddy bear Zullo and Sherrif Joe have given them.

After all, if they cared about people lying, then they wouldn’t still be birthers at this point, would they?

Well done, Doc! Not only does your research show that the Arpaio Birf Patrol are using the 1968 manual while claiming it is the 1961 edition, it also only took a month to receive the right one, via your FOIA request. How long has the Posse been “investigating” this? They have sent FOIA requests to the Selective Service, but I guess doing another for the proper coding manual would have been an outlandish waste of resources, you know, compared with sending people to Hawaii. Geesh!

I would like to note that Page 6 of the 1961 tape specifications explicitly states, in a footnote regarding New York City, how “races other than white, Negro, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese” were to be coded.

They were to be coded as “other nonwhite,” which according to the tape codes is “9.”

In other words, the coding on Obama’s father’s race, far from being “strong evidence of forgery,” is precisely correct.

Reality Check: DocGreat work. I hope this gets picked up by the local media in Phoenix and the wire services who seem to have taken an interest in this. As Ricky Ricardo would say “Jerry Corsi and Mike Zullo have some ‘splainin’ to do!”. Has anyone else pointed out there is a smiley face on the CCP document? It must be a forgery!

I would email the documents to the local news outlets like ABC15, etc so they have it

Thanks for reminding me about that footnote. It’s important and I have added it to the article.

John Woodman: I would like to note that Page 6 of the 1961 tape specifications explicitly states, in a footnote regarding New York City, how “races other than white, Negro, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese” were to be coded.

A couple of things about that. We now know that Zullo didn’t get his information from The Daily Pen (who used the 1969 manual). Also, when linking to the 1961 document, I would prefer folks used the Scribd link:

You are so full of it! Even a moron can look at the White House birth certificate and see that it’s a forgery! How dare you speak against the Cold Case Posse! You should just kneel down before Obama and worship him!

kevin: Even a moron can look at the White House birth certificate and see that it’s a forgery!

Since I am not a moron, I see it as very real.

Tell me where YOU think the President was born. What proof do you have? What story do you have as to why his mother didn’t give birth where she, her husband (the baby’s father) and her parents were. Go on, I am eargerly waiting.

You’re right. It takes a moron to look at the White House birth certificate and see that it’s a forgery. By the way, excellent use of the exclamation point. I can almost see the gluey spittle flying from your dessicated lips.

kevin: Even a moron can look at the White House birth certificate and see that it’s a forgery!

kevin:
You are so full of it! Even a moron can look at the White House birth certificate and see that it’s a forgery! How dare you speak against the ColdCase Posse! You should just kneel down before Obama and worship him!

I’m assuming this is a joke. But if it’s not, exactly what attributes is it that a moron would perceive in visually looking at the White House birth certificate that would indicate it is clearly a forgery? Not the layers crap, mind you, but the visual giveaway to a moron when he/she looks at it.

Obviously, you fools haven’t looked at the birth certificate closely. It is full of errors, if you would open your eyes. Obama’s maternal grandmother has consistently said that she saw him born in Kenya. Not only that, but Obama was quite proud of claiming to be born in Kenya until he ran for president. His literary agent for his books wrote that Obama was born in Kenya. This was written for 16 years. Don’t be fooled by this usurper in chief!

kevin: Obviously, you fools haven’t looked at the birth certificate closely. It is full of errors, if you would open your eyes. Obama’s maternal grandmother has consistently said that she saw him born in Kenya. Not only that, but Obama was quite proud of claiming to be born in Kenya until he ran for president. His literary agent for his books wrote that Obama was born in Kenya. This was written for 16 years. Don’t be fooled by this usurper in chief!

Nothing truly atypical at all, under the relevant circumstances. All claims of “errors” have fallen apart upon real further examination. Further, the state of HI repeatedly and adamantly stands behind it 100%. You can’t counter that, no matter how hard your bitter hate-filled heart tries… so sucks to be you…

That is a blatent lie. She NEVER said that. The full tape and all follow-up clearly show that she said Obama (her grandson) was born in HI in the USA. Only her son Obama was born in Kenya. You are either an extreme fool or an intentional liar. Which is it?

kevin:
Obama’s maternal grandmother has consistently said that she saw him born in Kenya.

Another LIE from you. Obama never claimed to be born in Kenya, EVER. You are simply full of sh*t.

kevin:
Not only that, but Obama was quite proud of claiming to be born in Kenya until he ran for president.

His literary agent admitted making a clerical error and not properly fact-checking that. That error was corrected, once brought to attention. Further, that error only existed for a write-up of one book. Obama’s own autobiographies clearly ALWAYS stated in them that he was born in HI and NOWHERE ELSE. So you are nothing but a desperate idiot, grasping at straws to come up with excuses for your irrational personal hate.

kevin:
His literary agent for his books wrote that Obama was born in Kenya. This was written for 16 years.

As there is no such thing as an “usurper in chief”, we don’t have to worry about being fooled by figments of your fevered imagination. We are certainly not fooled by bitter and gullible morons, such as you.

Scientist, I’m not going to defend Romney! I don’t like him either! Last year when this birth certificate came out, it was scrutinized by some typeset experts, and they found that there were different fonts found within the words on this fraudulent document. There are many layers in the .pdf, which shows that it was fabricated on the computer rather than being a scanned document. There shouldn’t be grayscale characters within the words and numbers on the document either, but there is. Just download the .pdf and zoom in on it to find out this information.

kevin:
Obviously, you fools haven’t looked at the birth certificate closely. It is full of errors, if you would open your eyes. Obama’s maternal grandmother has consistently said that she saw him born in Kenya. Not only that, but Obama was quite proud of claiming to be born in Kenya until he ran for president. His literary agent for his books wrote that Obama was born in Kenya. This was written for 16 years. Don’t be fooled by this usurper in chief!

Can you answer a simple question or not? What are the visual cues that would allow a moron to obviously identify the document as a forgery? Since you seem truly qualified to answer that question, I’d love to hear it.

But since you do meet the pedigree of a moron, let me clarify what the phrase “visual cues” means. Citation of what someone else said (you are incorrect about his paternal grandmother, by the way) is not a “visual cue” from a document. Imaginary citations of what Obama did not say do not constitute a “visual cue” from a document. Citation of an error the literary agent has disavowed does not constitute a “visual cue” from a document.

I ask again: exactly what attributes is it that a moron would perceive in visually looking at the White House birth certificate that would indicate it is clearly a forgery?

kevin:
Obviously, you fools haven’t looked at the birth certificate closely. It is full of errors, if you would open your eyes. Obama’s maternal grandmother has consistently said that she saw him born in Kenya. Not only that, but Obama was quite proud of claiming to be born in Kenya until he ran for president. His literary agent for his books wrote that Obama was born in Kenya. This was written for 16 years. Don’t be fooled by this usurper in chief!

Yes, we have. Errors such as what?

No, she hasn’t.

He didn’t write it and may have never seen it. It was for distribution to the industry.

“Scientist, I’m not going to defend Romney! I don’t like him either! Last year when this birth certificate came out, it was scrutinized by some typeset experts, and they found that there were different fonts found within the words on this fraudulent document. There are many layers in the .pdf, which shows that it was fabricated on the computer rather than being a scanned document. There shouldn’t be grayscale characters within the words and numbers on the document either, but there is. Just download the .pdf and zoom in on it to find out this information.”

You’re a fool cutting and pasting stuff you do not understand. Okay. That’s consistent with being a moron.

But you began this demonstration of your limited intellect with the following: “Even a moron can look at the White House birth certificate and see that it’s a forgery!”

I ask again: exactly what attributes is it that a moron would perceive in visually looking at the White House birth certificate that would indicate it is clearly a forgery?

G, Obama’s bio on the inside cover wasn’t written by the literary agent, but by Obama himself. Obama wrote that he was born in Kenya, and he didn’t correct it for 16 years! How could it have been an error? Open your eyes!

kevin: Scientist, I’m not going to defend Romney! I don’t like him either! Last year when this birth certificate came out, it was scrutinized by some typeset experts, and they found that there were different fonts found within the words on this fraudulent document.

So, you admit Romney’s birth certificate is phony! I have carefully examined both and my conclusion is-Obama’s 100% genuine. Romney’s <50% chance of being genuine. I am a PhD scientist, which none of the posse can claim (Corsi is a PhD in Political Science which is 99% politics and at best 1% science).

As for the fonts, sorry, they are exactly as would be produced by an early-era electric typewriter. I have many old documents that look identical. Layers are exactly what you would expect when you scan a complex document like that. You won't win an argument with a real scientist son, so you can stop now.

Now, focus on trying to explain why an 18 year old girl would leave her family and travel 12,000 miles to a poor country with minimal medical care, where she didn't know a soul to have a baby. Go ahead, I am anxious to hear a good story.

kevin: G, Obama’s bio on the inside cover wasn’t written by the literary agent, but by Obama himself. Obama wrote that he was born in Kenya, and he didn’t correct it for 16 years! How could it have been an error? Open your eyes!

I can’t imagine going through life as a stupid Obama loving kool aid drinker. I didn’t copy and paste anything by the way! I’m done trying to convince you idiots of the obvious lies of Obama and his forged birth certificate ! By the way, how well off are you now since he has been president?

The only constant errors here are by you. Pull your head out of your @ss!

kevin:
G, Obama’s bio on the inside cover wasn’t written by the literary agent, but by Obama himself. Obama wrote that he was born in Kenya, and he didn’tcorrect it for 16 years! How could it have been an error? Open your eyes!

Sorry, but we live and deal with the real world. You are nothing but a gullible tool, who simply repeats any silly lie that any cheap con artist can spoon-feed to your eager, hate-filled empty head.

The only obvious lies here are those coming from you, so stop projecting your miserable failings onto others.

Me personally – I think this country is much better off, now that Obama is President and I very much look forward to what he can accomplish in his second term. It takes a long time to turn around the huge mess we fell into and I’m grateful that he’s around to steer them back towards the right direction. So, suck on that.

kevin:
I can’t imagine going through life as a stupid Obama loving kool aid drinker. I didn’t copy and paste anything by the way! I’m done trying to convince you idiots of the obvious lies of Obama and his forged birth certificate ! By the way, how well off are you now since he has been president?

kevin:
I can’t imagine going through life as a stupid Obama loving kool aid drinker. I didn’t copy and paste anything by the way! I’m done trying to convince you idiots of the obvious lies of Obama and his forged birth certificate ! By the way, how well off are you now since he has been president?

You’re done trying because you’re a moron without clear understanding of any of the factoids you garble and, thus, you’re getting embarrassed.

kevin: I can’t imagine going through life as a stupid Obama loving kool aid drinker. I didn’t copy and paste anything by the way! I’m done trying to convince you idiots of the obvious lies of Obama and his forged birth certificate ! By the way, how well off are you now since he has been president?

Nice of you to ask. Doing great. Thinking of buying a house, thanks to the lower housing prices, and the stock market rebound.

kevin: By the way, how well off are you now since he has been president?

My woodworking business (which does zero Government work, by the way) has fully recovered from the economic near-depression caused by the Republicans, and is now doing so well I will be able to donate the legal maximum amount to help re-elect one of the most capable, good-natured, moral and honest presidents to have ever served this great nation.

You are all deceived and being dishonest about how your doing since he was elected. Obama has
spent more than all of the presidents combined, and this country is bankrupt. Your stocks will be worth nothing soon. How is that for Hope and Change?

“I think this data field, more than any other, has been the subject of controversy, with many misrepresenting this as the race of the child, and its value as “African American.” Decoding this field is a bit tricky because there is no explicit code set stated for the Father’s Race. Indeed, I cannot find any data item on the tape corresponding to the Father’s Race at all (nor Mother’s race for that matter).

The only race codes specified were for the child (NTFUS Page 6):

So is this now a decided point: the race codes for the parents are the same as for the child?

I am doing quite well, thank you. I am retired and the majority of my savings is in equity investments. The day Obama was inaugurated, the S&P 500 stood at 832 and today it closed at 1373, up about 65% in in 3 and half years. Yes, I am doing very well indeed.

kevin: By the way, how well off are you now since he has been president?

Yes it certainly is. There is some justification for a more conclusive tone.

First, since the original article, I noted that in other years, the same codes were used for parents and children, and a little though makes it pretty obvious that this should be the case. Second there is that footnote about race codes specifically mentioning that ALL STATES except New York used “9” for “other nonwhite.”

The key point, however, is that we only have two choices for the race codes, either the table I listed, or “don’t know” because the table Zullo used was a fraud.

Dr. Conspiracy: Second there is that footnote about race codes specifically mentioning that ALL STATES except New York used “9″ for “other nonwhite.”

I understand your point about it being the same as for other years. That footnote concerns the code for parents’ race, does it not? If the same kind of format is followed for this matter in other years, why the change in 1968 regarding “unknown or not stated’? How do you determine which specs change and which do not?

Was Zullo’s fraud strictly in using 1968 Codes claiming them to be 1961 Codes or was there more to that issue?

In my original article, I tried to enumerate every possible objection that someone might come up with. However, there was never any doubt in my mind that the same codes were used for both. I spent 36 years developing software systems that talked to the federal government. They never come up with multiple coding systems for the same information in the same data set.

Give it up kevin. You’ve lost. You come across as nothing more than some random neutered nutter street vagrant, proclaiming that “the end of the world is nigh” and merely bitter at all the success you see around you, yet are too inept yourself to achieve.

Sorry, but the silly games of self-delusion you have to wrap yourself in only work on other weak minded fools, such as yourself. Your imaginary “scary” pretend world and hollow threats have no effect here or anywhere else in the real world.

The only person to blame for your own pathetic condition is yourself.

kevin:
You are all deceived and being dishonest about how your doing since he was elected. Obama has
spent more than all of the presidents combined, and this country is bankrupt. Your stocks will be worth nothing soon. How is that for Hope and Change?

Also, what I meant about the change in specs, how do you know that the spec was changed regarding #9 for the parents’ race in 1968 rather than being the same in both years, as other specs did not change?

kevin:
I can’t imagine going through life as a stupid Obama loving kool aid drinker. I didn’t copy and paste anything by the way! I’m done trying to convince you idiots of the obvious lies of Obama and his forged birth certificate ! By the way, how well off are you now since he has been president?

Since I am fortunate enough to be a member of the investor class, I can say that I am delighted to be significantly better off today than on the last day of the Bush administration.
On President Obama’s first day in office, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average closed at 7,949.
The NASDAQ was at 1,441 and the S & P stood at 805.
Today, the Dow closed at 12,909; the NASDAQ ended the day at 2,943 and the S & P finished at 1,373.
In case Kevin is ignorant about the stock market, bigger numbers are good!

Thomas Brown: Hey, that’s better than Romney, who keeps underage male sex slaves in his basement, bites the heads off kittens, and worships Satan while clubbing baby seals and urinating on an American flag!

Kevin, you have convinced me. I am looking at a document from a client. It has it all: multiple, bitmapped layers! Crappy, low-quality JPEG background! Clipping paths! White “halos” embedded in the background!

Since this document, and others like it, are engineering reports detailing how my company screwed up, my employer will be thrilled to learn that any such file is a forgery. Thanks, Kevin, you’ve saved us thousands!

________

PS–these documents have enabled me to identify Arpaio’s suspicious entity. The name is buried right there in the file’s encoding, every time. Many here have ridiculed Arpaio for not pursuing charges or indictments. Once you see the truth, you’ll understand. The forger is really, really good, but doesn’t come cheap. Quite Nuanced, I would say:

They change the codes because it suits their data system and whatever they are trying to measure that year. Emphasis changes. 1968 was a year of a major revision to the US standard certificate.

charo: I understand your point about it being the same as for other years. That footnote regard the code for parents’ race, does it not? If the same kind of format is followed for this matter in other years, why the change in 1968 regarding “unknown or not stated’?

Dr. Conspiracy: They change the codes because it suits their data system and whatever they are trying to measure that year. Emphasis changes. After 1989 they stopped reporting the child’s race completely.

So how do you know whether the same Codes for the parents were not the same in 1961 as they were for 1968? Maybe the Code was not changed or is there a way to know that the Code was changed- you may know given your expertise.

Because it makes no sense for there to be different race codes for parent and child. It just isn’t done.

You might call this begging the question, but the State of Hawaii says that Obama’s long form is authentic, and it has “9” on it and the race is stated. Again the point is that Zullo lied about the document he presented.

charo: Also, what I meant about the change in specs, how do you know that the spec was changed regarding #9 for the parents’ race in 1968 rather than being the same in both years, as other specs did not change?

kevin:
You are all deceived and being dishonest about how your doing since he was elected. Obama has
spent more than all of the presidents combined, and this country is bankrupt. Your stocks will be worth nothing soon. How is that for Hope and Change?

Yes, well, I have ceased responding to certain emails, and just noticed someone called to no doubt rant. No need to return that call. I’m just about tapped out with certain people. Threats have been leveled at me, as well. It is all very sad.

G:
Typical.Every time a big Birther OMG moment turns out to be a spectacular sputtering dud of nothing, we get a bunch of random Birther whiners popping up to throw their tearful tantrums of denial…

I can’t imagine how miserable and pathetic it must be to go through daily life as a Birther…

kevin: Obama has
spent more than all of the presidents combined, and this country is bankrupt. Your stocks will be worth nothing soon. How is that for Hope and Change?

“Obama has spent more than all of the presidents combined, and this country is bankrupt.”

Normally, I do not respond to nonsense. When W walked through the door, there was a surplus of ~$212M. When Obama walked through the door, there was a deficit of $1T. The deficit has become even larger, because W was running Iraq and ‘Stan off the books as the Black Budget. Obama is including those two in the general budget, which is the transparency he campaigned on.

W was the biggest spender of all. Liberals go along with taxes and spending for the commonweal. Conservatives borrow and spend on invading a country, so someone’s cronies can get their paws on oil.

Taxes are the price of civilization. Limbaugh complained loudly and long about his NYC income tax. He failed to mention that he spent ~$450K on a Maybach, which is a highfalutin Mercedes.

“Your stocks will be worth nothing soon.”

Sorry, but my portfolio is up substantially since Obama took office. I get my statements by e-mail, so the updates are continual.

In fact, I was able to donate my car and Honda bike after a stroke, instead of selling them for cash.

I feel your pain. As you’ve shared about your family situation, I’m sorry to see that you’re having to deal with this and that it has risen to the level of threats against you.

THAT is unacceptable – family or no, you need to protect yourself and put your foot down to stop any domestic incident, or even threat of such from happening.

Any threat by them needs to be followed by a stern reminder that such things are against the law and all it takes is one phone call for you to get a restraining order filed against them…

I really think you should strongly consider taking that step. It appears to be necessary.

Paper:
Yes, well, I have ceased responding to certain emails, and just noticed someone called to no doubt rant. No need to return that call. I’m just about tapped out with certain people.Threats have been leveled at me, as well. It is all very sad.

The third-party spam filter this site uses is acting up. I hope that by reporting all the errors to the provider, they will fix it. Anyhow all the comments have been approved. Heck, I even approved one from Dragging Rabbit Canoe thingy. (one time only)

BillTheCat: I am unable to post anything with a url. Posts are being deleted as they are submitted. There is something wrong here, anyone know what’s going on?

Thanks, G. And, well, I have done so. I even outed the specific person to everyone else. Many of those others share similar politics, varying degrees of birtherism mixed with simple anti-Obama-ism, but at least they understand there is a line. And that calling out may be worse than any restraining order in this family. Long story short, well I’m not actually sure how to summarize it simply here. But a line has been crossed that is almost certainly irrevocably final, the end of a sibling relationship, not through my will or declaration but just in fact. Just recognition. Not just a matter of living with disagreement. It’s more shocking than anything, given how close we used to be, and how I stood up for him against our father once upon a time.

Not for nothing, I watched Rudy’s Secret Service visit with some interest. While I have worked with Secret Service guys in the past, it was quite telling to watch them at work with someone like Rudy and see so fully how someone like Rudy interacts with them.

From up close, it is just a sickness. In their heads, they justify and have it all worked out, even righteously so. But their hearts are sick.

G:
I feel your pain.As you’ve shared about your family situation, I’m sorry to see that you’re having to deal with this and that it has risen to the level of threats against you.

THAT is unacceptable – family or no, you need to protect yourself and put your foot down to stop any domestic incident, or even threat of such from happening.

Any threat by them needs to be followed by a stern reminder that such things are against the law and all it takes is one phone call for you to get a restraining order filed against them…

I really think you should strongly consider taking that step.It appears to be necessary.

kevin:
You are so full of it! Even a moron can look at the White House birth certificate and see that it’s a forgery! How dare you speak against the ColdCase Posse! You should just kneel down before Obama and worship him!

LOLOL, since they grow on trees, they can’t be any smarter than a leaf.

Jamese777: In case Kevin is ignorant about the stock market, bigger numbers are good!

Of course he is, James! Birfers don’t do stocks. They am much too smarts for that.

They put all their money in gold, don’t ya know.* References the ads on all de birfer sites. That and ads featuring young white women hawking youth in a jar. This is notmeant to betray the fact that nearly all birfers are cranky old white geezers…. but it does.
__________

* Gold-wrapped chocolate coins, that is! Dreaming of the day when they can has real ones. If they just keep praying for tax cutters, wealth will flow like a river from the billionaires all the way down to the birfer classes. (Somehow, this is completely different than gub’mint welfare))

Every one is talking about the race field having a 9 but remember the Kind of Business or Industry also has a 9 coded for it. has Doc been able to find the codes that correspond to this field? The Nordyke BC has a 1 coded for this field while Obama’s BC has a 9 coded for this field. Any explanation Doc?

charo: Also, what I meant about the change in specs, how do you know that the spec was changed regarding #9 for the parents’ race in 1968 rather than being the same in both years, as other specs did not change?

Charo, read the 1964 Vital Statistics in the United States, Natality.

They made a change in 1964. Aleut and Eskimo which each had separate codes were combined with code 3 for American Indians. Also Hawaiian and Part Hawaiian were combined. So two of the previous codes were combined into a third. So there was a need for some renumbering.

There is also detailed explanation of how the childs race is dependant on the parents.

The very last section, the Technical Appendix is where you find a lot of info.

Personally, I don’t see this as nearly as big a fraud as Zullo’s claim that the certificate numbers (IIRC, he refers to them as batch numbers) prove that President Obama could not have been born at Kapiolani. WND published a BC last fall from for a girl born at Kapiolani on August 23rd, 1961. Her batch number is considerably lower than the Nordykes and President Obama. That fact destroys Zullo’s theory about how the BCs were processed. He also ignored Stig Waidelich’s batch number which is much higher than the President’s.

But here is an interesting part, back in May the following question was put to butterdezillion at her blog:

Tommy Thompson says:
May 29, 2012 at 2:13 am

Butter, Jerome Corsi just asked this question and I told him to contact you because you have done extensive research on this:
“Jerome Corsi
Last question — also very important — could someone have been born at Kapiolani Hospital in the same month and same year as Obama and ended up with a number that was some 500 lower than Obama — also a number that was six digits long, not five digits one? For instance 1961 009876 Is this type of a number possible.”

justlw: In the original post he said, in both cases, “no code set seems applicable” . How is that a lie?

It is a lie by Dr, Conspiracy becuase in THIS post he suggests that the 1961 code is the correct code when he says:
“I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on May 2, 2011, with the Department of Health and Human services for the 1961 specifications document. I received my response to request 11-00673 in August of 2011 and subsequently scanned it and made Tape File Information 1960-1961 natality Tape Files for the United States available on this web site”

and he relies on this 1961 code being the correct code to call Sherrif Arpaio a liar.

Yes, in his other post he admits neither code fits…. did it ever occur to you that the 1968 code linked to here also might not be the actual code Sherriff Arpaio’s teeam referenced? That might be another part of Dr. C’s lie?

Sadly, agreed. That self-righteousness is the part that spins out of control and makes them inevitably dangerous, without something to check them in place.

I think you did the right and necessary thing.

Paper: From up close, it is just a sickness. In their heads, they justify and have it all worked out, even righteously so. But their hearts are sick.

I really commend you for handling it this way. Those other family members NEED to know. As they are not just blood, but also part of that siblings own self-viewed socio-political “tribe”, I agree that their disapproval of that sibling’s actions will be a lot more important than anything else, going forward. Worst case scenario, they can work to prevent that person from getting away with causing further harm…or at least mitigate it to some extent. Best case scenario, such “shunning” might eventually get through that person’s thick zealous head…and perhaps one day, they will at least grasp the error of their ways…

Either way, I will remain hopeful and concerned for your safety and well-being. Take care of yourself, my friend and keep posting here, so we know you’re still around and doing well…

Paper: I even outed the specific person to everyone else. Many of those others share similar politics, varying degrees of birtherism mixed with simple anti-Obama-ism, but at least they understand there is a line. And that calling out may be worse than any restraining order in this family.

There are a number of cautions that should be stated prior to decoding the data from the form:

We do not have any documentation from the State of Hawaii as to what instructions were given to form coders in 1961, and whether such instructions were consistent with NCHS documentation.
We do not know that coding done on every birth certificate conformed to official instructions; that is, people make mistakes.
We do not know whether the keying instructions provided to the states conforms to the final tape layout of the national file. We know, for example, that New York’s race data was re-coded by the NCHS before inclusion in the national tape (discussion of this later).
We do not know if more detailed instructions from the NCHS for coders found in Parts II-a and II-b of the Vital Statistics Instruction Manual would change our interpretation and use of the NTFUS.

So while Doc might be able to get the code books for 1961 and 1968, he does concede that exact implementation of the Code books by Hawaii Officials in 1961 in a mystery to him.

This was cleared up when Arpaio’s team contacted the Verna Lee, the Registar from 1961 who actually signed Obama’s BC. According to to her, Code “9” at the time meant that data was missing.

Dr. C. relies on the the 1961 code being the correct code to call Sherriff Joe a liar. But in his decoding part 2 post he admits the 1961 code isn’t correct either. Neither code presented here gives any info for Usual Occupation – Student = 0, Kind of Buisness or Industry – University = 9, etc. Which is it?

That’s true JimR. Doc C. may have the code book but lacks the knowledge of how it was actually implementated by Hawaiin officials in 1961. Arpaio’s team was able to contact Verna Lee to determine just how the codes were actually implementated. According to her, Code “9” was specified to mean the data was “missing”. Arpaio claims that they recorded the conversation with her. Arpaio will be glad to release that recording when Hawaii releases Obama’s BC or at least starts to cooporate with Arpaio.

there are so many differences in the pencil marks
to the federal coding instructions
that I assume it’s all one different local coding system.
Independent of the federal system.
Maybe for the Hawaii statistics system only.
While Huntsville needed additional information anyway,
like the baby-weight. And it was microfilmed and sent to
the national statistics in Huntsville. And the different US-states use different
birth certificates, so the pencil marks make not much sense
in aid to Huntsville.

??? Well, then you are just making up and pulling assumptions out of your @ss.

Sorry, but don’t see these “differences” that you claim…. nor do I see where you have any personal experience in such matters.

Doc C on the other hand…well, he spent his career dealing with that kind of stuff…so I’ll value his opinion on this particular topic over yours…

foreigner:
there are so many differences in the pencil marks
to the federal coding instructions
that I assume it’s all one different local coding system.
Independent of the federal system.
Maybe for the Hawaii statistics system only.
While Huntsville needed additional information anyway,
like the baby-weight. And it was microfilmed and sent to
the national statistics in Huntsville. And the different US-states use different
birth certificates, so the pencil marks make not much sense
in aid to Huntsville.

The posse has “claimed” a lot of things, and proven none of them.
Its always “We have reason to believe…”, or “We think that…”
Hawaii on the other hand just said “Here, what we are saying is stone cold fact!”

the data from the tapes themselves, do they still exist ?
Will they be made available one day ?
2134163 birth certificates , but maybe only the even numbers
were processed, as I understood.
—————————————
All the 1701522 anonymized death certificates from 1961 _are_
available online.

“Births in the United States in 1961 are classified for vital statistics into white, Negro, American Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Aleut, Eskimo, Hawaiian and Part-Hawaiian (combined), and “other nonwhite.”

Doc was not able to obtain the 1961 manual. However, his FOIA request gave him access to some code interpretation. Arpaio’s team was able to actually get the 1961 manual. Apparently there appears to be some conflict of what Doc C. is citing from his FOIA request documentation versus information gained from the actual 1961 manual.

The numbers are still very suspect. Doc C and the Obots are intentionally avoiding the other coded “9” for discussion. In Box 12B of Obama’s BC, the kind of business or occupation is identified as UNIVERSITY and is coded with a “9”. On the Nordyke certificate, the same box is identified as “PRIVATE PRACTICE” with a code of “1”. So far, Doc C. has provided no information on the coding of this field and why box 12B should have a “9” in it.

Dr.C’s
“Tape File Information 1960-1961 natality Tape Files for the United States”
is in conflict with the
“Vital Statistics of the United States 1961 Volume I – Natality” report from the
U.S. Department of Health,Education, and Welfare
quoted by the birthers.
E.g. “Filipino” is coded separately according to Dr.C’s manual , but not according
to the Vital Statistics report.

So, is there a statistics of Filipino births in USA from 1961 ?
I couldn’t find it.

gorefan: Charo, read the 1964 Vital Statistics in the United States, Natality.

They made a change in 1964.Aleut and Eskimo which each had separate codes were combined with code 3 for American Indians.Also Hawaiian and Part Hawaiian were combined.So two of the previous codes were combined into a third.So there was a need for some renumbering.

There is also detailed explanation of how the childs race is dependant on the parents.

The very last section, the Technical Appendix is where you find a lot of info.

Personally, I don’t see this as nearly as big a fraud as Zullo’s claim that the certificate numbers (IIRC, he refers to them as batch numbers) prove that President Obama could not have been born at Kapiolani.WND published a BC last fall from for a girl born at Kapiolani on August 23rd, 1961.Her batch number is considerably lower than the Nordykes and President Obama.That fact destroys Zullo’s theory about how the BCs were processed.He also ignored Stig Waidelich’s batch number which is much higher than the President’s.

But here is an interesting part, back in May the following question was put to butterdezillion at her blog:

Tommy Thompson says:
May 29, 2012 at 2:13 am

Butter, Jerome Corsi just asked this question and I told him to contact you because you have done extensive research on this:
“Jerome CorsiLast question — also very important — could someone have been born at Kapiolani Hospital in the same month and same year as Obama and ended up with a number that was some 500 lower than Obama — also a number that was six digits long, not five digits one? For instance 1961 009876 Is this type of a number possible.”

You are quoting “natality” Codes. It boils down to what was the Code for the parents (here the father is at issue) in 1961? First off, the video shows the 1968 Code and was presented as 1961. I am speculating but my guess is that Mr. Zullo- who alleged Mrs. Lee (? registrar) stated that 9 was the Code for unstated or unknown-, had no manual to back that up so used the1968 one. That is dishonest in itself. If Mrs. Lee never said that at all, it’s worse yet.

What I saw occurring here was that many were saying “Doc proved way back in March that #9 is the Code for Other” or something to that effect. That was simply not true. He made several disclaimers and speculated. He never conclusively made that statement. All anyone had to do was go back and read what he did say. Now, with no new information other than a footnote that confirms #9 was used for the child, he has made a conclusive statement based upon his opinion (which carries a lot of weight because of his expertise) that the Codes for the parents and the child had to have been the same in 1961. But he has no smoking gun either. The difference is, he didn’t present a Code as something that it wasn’t.

charo: . Now, with no new information other than a footnote that confirms #9 was used for the child,

Gosh that was terribly written. I meant the footnote Mr. Woodman found concerning #9 directing the Code to be used for the child’s race when the child is non-White (or whatever). It did not concern the Code used for parents, even though the child’s race was determined by the parents’ race. It is the Code number used that we are talking about, not how the child’s race is determined.

True, in theory — but Doc. Conspiracy already went to the trouble of making an FOIA request for the manual and sharing it with all of us.

Se we know what in the 1961 manual. The choices are either to accept Doc’s interpretation or else to conclude that there is not enough information to draw any conclusions about the numbers in fields not expressly covered in the manual. Not knowing what the code means is not a basis for alleging fraud.

Expelliarmus: True, in theory — but Doc. Conspiracy already went to the trouble of making an FOIA request for the manual and sharing it with all of us.

Se we know what in the 1961 manual. The choices are either to accept Doc’s interpretation or else to conclude that there is not enough information to draw any conclusions about the numbers in fields not expressly covered in the manual. Not knowing what the code means is not a basis for alleging fraud.

I mean a manual from Hawaii. If Mrs. Lee would sign some kind of affidavit, I’m sure her competency would be questioned, but there would be some kind of proof. But we don’t have any sworn statement, just someone claiming what she said.

Wouldn’t unknown or not stated been a consideration in 1961? I am not referring to the circumstances of President Obama, but there had to have been cases where the father simply wasn’t known or the mother did not want to reveal him. A value would have been needed.

This is a question from a blog that I would like to know also. Not being an expert, it may be something obvious:

Where his [Dr. C’s] theory, and Zullo’s fall short, is why would the same “race qualifier” code be used both for the fathers race and for the fathers business/industry? “9″ would have to be a universal/general/interchangeable catch-all code. I can see it being in the race field – but where is the chart that explains it being in the “business” field?

charo: Where his [Dr. C’s] theory, and Zullo’s fall short, is why would the same “race qualifier” code be used both for the fathers race and for the fathers business/industry? “

Where all the theories fall short is that the pencil marks are not an indicator of forgery nor an argument against it. We don’t know what Barack Obama, Sr told the clerk at the hospital as far as his race or occupation. All the information is based on what the parents say. In fact, had he told the clerk he was born in Brooklyn, he/she would probably have believed it (Brooklyn being as foreign to Hawaii as Kenya) and that would probably have been entered on the form and the Vattel birthers would be out of business.

The race codes are by no means all-inclusive anyway. For example, where does someone from India fit? They are neither white, nor negro/black. And North Indians are racially quite different from South Iindians. Now, in much of East Africa there have been centuries of trade with Arabia ad Iran and much inter-breeding. The people are a mixture and quite distinct from those of coastal West Africa, which is where African Americans came from. So,to lump Obama Sr.in with African Americans would be incorrect.

JPotter: Of course he is, James! Birfers don’t do stocks. They am much too smarts for that.They put all their money in gold, don’t ya know.* References the ads on all de birfer sites. That and ads featuring young white women hawking youth in a jar. This is notmeant to betray the fact that nearly all birfers are cranky old white geezers…. but it does.__________

Actually, gold has also done well since Obama took office. So have bonds. Real estate would depend on where (NYC-great, Las Vegas-not). Still, despite the moaning and groaning from those on the right, the last 3.5 years have been good for most investors, much better than the previous 8.

How can you say that they had the 1961 manual when their own video shows the 1968 manual which they falsely labeled as 1961? I’m afraid we have the smoking gun here. Zullo is a liar.

john: Doc was not able to obtain the 1961 manual. However, his FOIA request gave him access to some code interpretation. Arpaio’s team was able to actually get the 1961 manual. Apparently there appears to be some conflict of what Doc C. is citing from his FOIA request documentation versus information gained from the actual 1961 manual.

john: Every one is talking about the race field having a 9 but remember the Kind of Business or Industry also has a 9 coded for it. has Doc been able to find the codes that correspond to this field? The Nordyke BC has a 1 coded for this field while Obama’s BC has a 9 coded for this field. Any explanation Doc?

No, I rely on the 1968 manual from a federal web site (link in the article) to prove that what Zullo said was a 1961 manual was actually a 1968 manual. You don’t have to rely on anything I say to verify this. He is a liar (or whoever wrote the video script is a liar).

The fact that the 1961 code for race is different simply removes the “honest mistake” excuse.

JimR: and he relies on this 1961 code being the correct code to call Sherrif (sic) Arpaio a liar.

Doc: I’m still confused by this whole phony “controversy”. If I recall correctly from when my kids were born, a clerk or nurse came into the room and asked a bunch of questions. She wrote down what we said, and I don’t recall being asked to prove anything. So, if Obama, Sr said “African”. she wrote African; if he refused to say, she wrote “unspecified” or “refused to say” or maybe wrote “African” based on his birthplace.

Unless they were there when the form was filled out, how can anyone know what Obama Sr. said, and therefore, how can they say if the codes are correct or not?

There is a strong presumption that they wrote down what he said, and the birth certificate has “African” on it, so that’s probably what he said. For occupation, he said “student.” The coding would have been done later and that could be interpretive, but the text values are presumed to be actual.

Dr. Conspiracy: There is a strong presumption that they wrote down what he said, and the birth certificate has “African” on it, so that’s probably what he said. For occupation, he said “student.” The coding would have been done later and that could be interpretive, but the text values are presumed to be actual.See my article:http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2009/08/vital-statistics/

So, even if one were to (foolishly) take Zullo at his word, how does the coding in any way indicate forgery? It’s simply some clerk’s guessing which # best fits the actual answer. And with all respect to Ms Lee, even assuming that the CCP spoke to her and is quoting her accurately, she can’t remember what she did with a particular answer 50 years ago.

I really don’t understand the argument the CCP is making. But perhaps I am just not as smart as those guys.

Off topic, but every time someone brings up the fallen price of real estate in Las Vegas, I think back to some douchebag I knew in 2006 who was constantly going on and on about his great and amazing accomplishments, including the house he owned near The Strip in Las Vegas that had been skyrocketing in value. Then I get a pleasant little tingle of schadenfreude.

Scientist: Actually, gold has also done well since Obama took office. So have bonds. Real estate would depend on where (NYC-great, Las Vegas-not). Still, despite the moaning and groaning from those on the right, the last 3.5 years have been good for most investors, much better than the previous 8.

I know Scientist, that wasn’t the point, Gold had a rush and has peaked. The point was that wingers are suckers for the marketing that comes late in the game. “Gold has quadrupled!” (a rise that started after the tech bubble burst) “Get in on the ground floor!” (Ummm …. yes, 5 years too late …!)

Thrifty: every time someone brings up the fallen price of real estate in Las Vegas,

You too? I knew several of the same, I remember thinking, “something’s wrong here” … glad it wasn’t me.

Scientist ” If I recall correctly from when my kids were born, a clerk or nurse came into the room and asked a bunch of questions.

and i have been present when parents were handed a form to complete themselves – no one questioned the answers – in fact, in ny (in the 70s at least) , you had 10 days to complete the form (and name the child) long after you have left the hospital

if you look and mitt romney’s (excuse for a) colb, his mother’s age doesn’t agree with her DOB

foreigner: but maybe only the even numbers
were processed, as I understood.

Even the 50% sampling statements are debatable. The Vital Statistics Annual reports only start to mention a 50% sampling rate in 1966.

1965 – “Natality statistics for 1965 are based on information obtained from microfilm copies of the original birth certificates. These copies are received from the registration offices of all States, certain cities, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”

1966 – “Natality statistics for 1966 are based on information obtained from a systematic 50-percent sample of microfilm copies of the original birth certificates. These copies are received from the registration offices of all States, certain cities, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”

1967 – “Natality statistics for 1967 are based on information obtained from a systematic 20- to 50-percent sample of microfilm copies of the original birth certificates. These copies are received from the registration offices of all States, certain cities, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”

1968 – “Natality statistics for 1968 are based on information obtained from a systematic 50-percent sample of microfilm copies of the original birth certificates. The National Center for Health Statistic receives copies are received from the registration offices of all States, certain cities, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.”

Yeah, that’s right on top of the WH’s worry list. OMG, we better force Hawaii to give Arpaio what he wants, otherwise he’ll *never* let us hear an irrelevant tape recording. Oh what are we going to do?! Oh oh oh…

john:
According to her, Code “9″ was specified to mean the data was “missing”.Arpaio claims that they recorded the conversation with her.Arpaio will be glad to release that recording when Hawaii releases Obama’s BC or at least starts to cooporate with Arpaio.

john:
Caucasion is coded as “1″ because it is considered a “white” race.By the same token, a person stating they were “African” would considered be “Negro” and be coded as such.

if you SELF-REPORT that you are “african”, what right does ANYONE have to change that?

when the 2010 census questions were revealed, people questioned why “negro” was a choice – the bureau explained that, in the 2000 census, some respondents ADDED “negro” to the choices and √d that

john:
According to her, Code “9″ was specified to mean the data was “missing”.Arpaio claims that they recorded the conversation with her.Arpaio will be glad to release that recording when Hawaii releases Obama’s BC or at least starts to cooporate with Arpaio.

here’s a conspiracy fer ya – verna lives on malia st- malia is the name of obama’s daughter

what arpaio et al say about the conversation they had with verna (after they left hawaii) is hearsay – judge it as such

How so? The Vital Statistic Reports for 1961 say that the race of the child was based on the indicated race of the parents. So are you saying that they had to different race tables? since the chiuld’s race was dependent on the parents’ race wouldn’t the code sets need to be the same?

They had specific rules with how to code the child when the parents were not of the same race.

donna: if you SELF-REPORT that you are “african”, what right does ANYONE have to change that?

I guess these people have never met darker North Africans, or any “coloureds” from South Africa. Many of them if asked about their race would answer “African” without much hesitation (the immense majority of the coloureds I mentioned even call their language “Afrikaans”) but not one of them would like to be called a negro. Most blacks living in Africa in the early 1960s would likewise have hated the word negro because of its association with slavery. (And even today, most African blacks who do not hate being called negroes live in Ethiopia or … Britain)

The claim that nurses would have had to change “African” into negro “because it was an obvious error” is absurd: the nurse who would have had to do that administrative task, would probably not have seen Obama sr. How would she have known that Obama sr looked like an American negro, rather than like a Mororoccan or a Boer?

Gorefan, the box marked 9 refers to what race /ethnicity for the parent, not the child, yet dr. C says 9 refers to a child, as provided for in his submission. The BC is in conflict with itself and Dr. C didnt catch this for over a year

david: Gorefan, exactly, they have exact codes for the children, and here we are not talking about the child, but the adult.

There is no logical reason to have different coding standards here. The 1968 and all the other coding standards I have seen are all consistent for parents and child.

Explain to us why the CCP showed a 1968 document as if it were a 1961 document and now they are moving to ‘well these were Hawaiian codes’ even though they initially called it federal codes?

Something does not smell right.

Dr C has applied common sense and logic and has shown that 9 for race in 1961 did not mean ‘not stated’ and I have shown how the codes evolved logically from 1961 to 1968 when in 1964 Aleut and Eskimo were moved under American Indian, and Hawaii and part Hawaii were reconciled. This opened two spots at coding 6 and 7, and a new code for ‘not stated’ was added.

Simple logic. Dr C clearly outlined that 9 refers to child but logically deduces that one may extend the code to race for the parents. Regardless, the document in 1961 does NOT show that 9 means ‘not stated’.

Simple really. Did you even read Dr C’s contribution in which he outlines clearly that race was the parents’ race? Read Part 2 of his excellent detective work.

Next time, read before you protest too much and look uninformed and foolish.

The Gustafsons’ daughter was born in October 2009. After her birth, the Gustafsons submitted a birth registration for her, in which they left blank the spaces left for stating their races as her parents. The Gustafsons then requested two certified copies of her daughter’s birth certificate (just in case, you know, she might want to run for president someday).

Instead of getting the birth certificates, the Gustafsons received a letter from one “K. Lavarias,” an official in Hawaii’s “Office of Health Status Monitoring” (which sounds a trifle Orwellian). From Judge Mollway’s order (citations omitted):

Good catch. I’ll be interested in what Zullo and Arpaio have to say about it. I did not see where you addressed some of the other issues.

What about the procedures for numbering the birth certificates described by Ms. Lee? Apparently, she was adament about not making mistakes.

How about Hawaii’s loose application procedures for obtaining birth certificates?

I know the presser was just the other day, but when you are able to look into it, I’ll be interested in what you find.

It is refreshing to find someone who is willing to actually look at the purported evidence and dispute the findings on that basis, rather than simply smear the investigator or call him names, or as in the case of the mainstream media simply ignore the entire subject, or say that it has already been debunked, or claim that it is racism on the part of those who can’t stand the fact that our president is black.

most people, including Zullo, seem to think some of the codes are federal and some state.
But does that make sense ? I’d rather assume they are all state-codes.
While the feds just get the microfilms and make their own codes from it.
They have more resources and better methods than Hawaii.

> But now the CCP is back pedaling again, claiming that it was
> not a federal code, but rather a Hawaiian code.

the 9 in field 9 ? referrence ?
So that would basically be withdrawing their claim since
they do not have the Hawaii 1961 coding manual. At least they did not claim
(yet) that they have it.

There is no statement in the Cold Case Posse press conference that says Ms. Lee discussed any specific coding.

Michael Bauser: I bet the phone conversation Corsi won’t share would reveal him using the 1968 manual to con Lee into giving him the answer he could twist. The conversation would have gone something like this:

david:
CODE 9, the way you are using it as a rebuttal, refers to children,not the father. So the BC is still in error, your way. You have to go back and revise the article.

There’s no error there. In fact, the entire thing, looked at objectively, is yet another affirmation of the authenticity of the birth certificate.

Early on in my own investigation of the birth certificate — which dug as deep as I could at the time — I realized that there was nothing in the PDF to indicate fraud. That being the case, I examined the information on the certificate as thoroughly as I could. The penciled codes were at that time a bit of a mystery to me, although they obviously seemed to be codes for data entry and classification of some sort.

I realized that an inconsistency of information of some sort could well be an indicator that the document underlying the PDF was a forgery. I spent days examining the fonts. I carefully examined all of the spacing, including both the overall placement of letters and the spaces between the individual letters. I examined the tab stops. I of course examined Karl Denninger’s claim that the typed information for Obama didn’t possess the curve of the paper that was seen in the lines of the form, and found that claim (like so many) to be absolutely false.

The bottom line here is that the penciled codes, where their meaning is known, as far as I can tell, check out absolutely. Okay. So we don’t have a key to tell us what they meant by “9” for the father’s occupation. Big deal. There’s no inconsistency there. There is simply a small gap in what is otherwise, by now, an astonishingly deep level of understanding of this document, which has now been taken apart, dissected, and analyzed by thousands and thousands of people, more so than any document in all of human history.

And the net result of all of this dissection and analysis is that every single damn thing on the document — where it COULD be understood, more than 50 years later, and notwithstanding the contrary and constant assertions of liars and conspiracy theorists — has shown itself to be consistent with authenticity.

This latest round of BS is pretty much the final nail in the coffin of the forgery theories. The ONLY thing that Arpaio’s press conference actually seems to have established is that the “Cold Case Posse” including Jerome Corsi, Michael Zullo, Mara Zebest, Mark Gillar, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio has at least SOME members who are lying frauds. How much Arpaio himself knew of the fraud is open to question. There is still some room for particular members of the team to assert that they personally were innocently ignorant of the fact that the information the Posse was representing to the media and public as being from a “1961 Vital Statistics Instruction Manual” was actually an image of a 1968 tape layout.

I have now personally checked out more than SIXTY significant claims made by birthers, including legal and historical claims regarding the meaning of “natural born citizen.” in EVERY instance, the claim has failed to pass scrutiny EVERY instance. And some of them have turned out to be outright lies.

The birther movement from the very beginning was built on falsehood after falsehood after falsehood. And in every instance, when you dig into what they claim is a pile of sand, you hit rock.

nbc: Did you even read Dr C’s contribution in which he outlines clearly that race was the parents’ race? Read Part 2 of his excellent detective work.

That was in reliance on the 1968 Code. I posed a question above and maybe I missed an answer. What was the code in 1961 for an unknown or unstated father? They were not acknowledged before 1961, and someone just looked at the infant and made a guess?

It appears to me that the father’s race was not reported to the federal government. Dr. Conspiracy, help us out on this here — what exactly would those tape specifications have been used for? Were those specifications for reporting data from the states to the federal government? Or were they an internal federal government document used to specify how they aggregated information that was reported from the states for internal processing and filing?

In any event, there is absolutely no reason why race codes — at whatever level, state or federal — for parents would have been anything different from the federal race codes for child. Anyone who’s worked with data knows you ALWAYS make such specifications essentially the same, to avoid confusion.

charo: That was in reliance on the 1968 Code. I posed a question above and maybe I missed an answer. What was the code in 1961 for an unknown or unstated father?

No such code appears to have existed. But since the code for a child is never not-stated, the answer is somewhat vague. We do know that for a child ‘9’ meant ‘other non-white’, which is quite in line with race: African.

I am slowly working my way through a lot of documents but so far the 1961 matches (other than Filipino), other sources which outline what race is coded for on birth certificates.

John Woodman:
In any event, there is absolutely no reason why race codes — at whatever level, state or federal — for parents would have been anything different from the federal race codes for child. Anyone who’s worked with data knows you ALWAYS make such specifications essentially the same, to avoid confusion.

Well, I shouldn’t say “always.” That’s a bit of an overstatement. But avoiding confusion in such cases is certainly very desirable. And in a case like this, where all of the options for “race” for ANY person — be it father, mother, or child — are absolutely identical, then there is absolutely no reason to EVER have a different set of codes for each category of person, and EVERY reason not to.

charo: That was in reliance on the 1968 Code.I posed a question above and maybe I missed an answer.What was the code in 1961 for an unknown or unstated father?They were not acknowledged before 1961, and someone just looked at the infant and made a guess?

As noted by nbc, according to the tape specs, there was no such code. It seems to have been added in 1964. See the 1964 vital statistics manual, appendix — I think — d. Going from memory here. Maybe page d-7?

That’s an interesting question, and one to which I do not know the answer. If I had to speculate, I would say they exist. That said, I’m not sure what use it would be. Occupation and Parents’ race aren’t in the file, nor are there any names.

In 1961, assuming we are referring to the correct source or doc, 9 meant or referred to the race of the child, it meant “other, non-white”

The question is, on the BC, “race of father” not race of the child.

Also, the 9 pops up on the box for the question about Obama;s fathers industry or business. This is a nonsensical 9 , Dr. C is stumped by this other 9.

“African” was not widely used as a racial designation in British controlled colonies /census in 1961. ” African” seems too broad a term, this can cover many types of people.

What would be really good for the cause, would be for BC’s for other people from 1961 Hawaii to come forward with the same “African ” designation, since we know there was more than one. That would be fantastic.

Zullo said that he learned about the Codes 2 weeks ago, but didn’t expound too much-focused on the “layers” more. I don’t know if that means he is backing off the Codes or not because he said that the case is made on the layers. I would think if I had the evidence he said he had about the Codes, that is much more understandable to people. The interviewer was getting lost in the technical discussion about the “layers.” Mara Zebest called in and spoke for a few more minutes on “layers” and said she has a new article at American Thinker.

david: Gorefan, the box marked 9 refers to what race /ethnicity for the parent, not the child, yet dr. C says 9 refers to a child, as provided for in his submission. The BC is in conflict with itself and Dr. C didnt catch this for over a year

david:
In 1961, assuming we are referring to the correct source or doc, 9 meant or referred to the race of the child, it meant “other, non-white”

The question is, on the BC, “race of father”not race of the child.

Also, the 9 pops up on the box for the question about Obama;s fathers industry or business. This is a nonsensical 9 , Dr. C is stumped by this other 9.

“African” was not widely used as a racial designation in British controlled colonies /censusin 1961. ” African” seems too broad a term, this can cover many types of people.

What would be really good for the cause, would be for BC’s for other people from 1961 Hawaii to come forward with the same “African ” designation, since we know there was more than one. That would be fantastic.

It may not be, but why wouldn’t they use the same codes as used to describe the race of the child, as was done in later versions? It makes a heck of a lot of sense, especially given that the vast majority of birth certificate forms at the time only listed the race of the parents without specifying the determined race of the child.

It’s also been noted that in many cases states have codes that aren’t listed in federal guidelines.

As for African not being a legitimate racial category for a Kenyan in the 1960s, I’m calling BS on that. It may have been fairly unique though. I’m guessing that there weren’t a whole lot of actual Africans in Hawaii during that time.

y_p_w: As for African not being a legitimate racial category for a Kenyan in the 1960s, I’m calling BS on that. It may have been fairly unique though. I’m guessing that there weren’t a whole lot of actual Africans in Hawaii during that time.

You are correct. The Kenya census document for that time period shows that african is the preferred description for race.

“African” was not widely used as a racial designation in British controlled colonies /censusin 1961. ” African” seems too broad a term, this can cover many types of people.

That is totally incorrect. In fact African according to contemporaneous Kenyan census documents show it to be the preferred description. Just search Dr C’s site or my site, it’s not that hard to do the simple search.

david: In 1961, assuming we are referring to the correct source or doc, 9 meant or referred to the race of the child, it meant “other, non-white”

The question is, on the BC, “race of father” not race of the child

It’s common sense to conclude that race would be encoded consistently. We know that for child in 1961 there were two categories which do not longer exist in 1968 (Aleut and Eskimo were merged with Indian), and others-nonwhite moved from position 9 to 7.

I have no idea why CCP was focusing on the wrong document to make their claim that federal codes for 9 mean ‘not stated’ in 1961.

nbc: I have none, neither 1961 nor 1968 helps here. But remember that the claim was that ’9′ meant not-stated according to CCP, there is no proof of this and it is contradicted by logic and common sense.

So at best the CCP can claim that we do not know for sure what 9 means. I am fine with that, but they claim it shows evidence of a forgery.

Documentation shows that the aggregate national tape file for 1961 had 2,134,172 records on it. That’s pretty close to exactly half of the total number of births in 1961 (4,268,326). So, yes, they did a a 50% sample in 1961.

Because only even-numbered certificates were reported, our beloved President isn’t on the file.

gorefan: Even the 50% sampling statements are debatable. The Vital Statistics Annual reports only start to mention a 50% sampling rate in 1966.

The tape layout indicates the use of “X” or bl (blank) for missing values in those fields where no data appears. This corresponds with the penciled “X” above the multiple birth fields at the top of the form.

the use of the 1961 birth certificates here would be to show the disputed
1961 coding. Tracking down single people like Obama is forbidden anyway.
Maybe allowed, if Obama approves it ?!
However, Obama’s number is odd, so presumably not included.
They may even have the certificate numbers, although they would be left
blank for the public versions. It could explain how the numbers
were assigned, when the batches came in.
Of course, the general use would be statistical :
Health,genetics,population movements,life expectancies
by race,age of parents,birth weight,…
or even how much Hawaii was being “abused”
to get US-birth certificates and by what groups.

Sure, but then there would be no entries for business and occupation? Or entries for birth place father. And we know that the father was mentioned in the newspaper announcements so again, a flawed hypothesis.

Did you make that up yourself or crib from another liar? I mean where do you get off coming to my web site and posting crap like that? Did you even read the article you’re commenting on? The one that says:

“In 1962, the Kenyan Census used the category “African” to describe black Africans”

Dr. Conspiracy:
The tape layout indicates the use of “X” or bl (blank) for missing values in those fields where no data appears. This corresponds with the penciled “X” above the multiple birth fields at the top of the form.

Could that mean not applicable versus unstated?
Is the use of X or blank true for 1968?

In the INS (?) paperwork released by a FOIA request on Obama Sr., would there have been a designation of his race somewhere (to show whether African may have been used)? I am guessing not or someone would have brought attention to that. Quick check-nothing

One employee coded the forms and another double checked.
They had a very low error rate.
Forms were batched by region and month.
Certificates were numbered with a hand stamp at the end of the month.

Except for the double check part, all of this is available from public sources. I find nothing wrong with what little Zullo actually attributed to Lee. However, Zullo seemed to contradict himself. In one case he said the records were numbered chronologically by date of event, and in another he said they were numbered by region. I think, though, that the certificate numbers we know blow the chronological by event out of the water..

charo: Does anything of what Mrs. Lee is claimed to have said sound accurate?

Well go look at it for yourself, or is all you can do to ask other people look stuff up for you?

charo: In the INS (?) paperwork released by a FOIA request on Obama Sr., would there have been a designation of his race somewhere (to show whether African may have been used)? I am guessing not or someone would have brought attention to that. Quick check-nothing

usually there are no letters in the electronically coded tapes.
Unless they changed them into numbers when they were transferred
to computer files, but that doesn’t look likely.
So, a “V” in the 1959 birth certificates appears strange.

You popped your cork for no reason. I wasn’t referring to your article, I’m speculating based upon information….and Im not lying. That text says “…Somali or African, etc…” The ‘etc.’ says it all-this is significant. Re read the text for the Kenyan census and think.

david: You popped your cork for no reason. I wasn’t referring to your article, I’m speculating based upon information….and Im not lying. That text says “…Somali or African, etc…” The ‘etc.’ says it all-this is significant. Re read the text for the Kenyan census and think.

Obama Sr told whoever filled out the form that his race was “African”. That was his absolute right. On the 2010 census my wife put us all down as “human”, as is her right. People can call themselves whatever they want to, buckaroo. I know that is a difficult concept for you, but that’s your problem.

In this instance, the numeral 9 is suppose to refer to the race of the child, but the question on the BC is for the race of the father. This is an inconsistency,, unless the Fed form intends for this 9 to refer to either or, but the form is unclear about this, I cant see a direct reference there for the possibility. Are we suppose to infer this? If so, why? Also, the Doc seems to be stumped by the presence of a 9 lower down, in the box where it is asked the industry or business of the father. The BC is thus odd and it is messed up.

I’m surprised about the accusation above , it seems wholly unwarranted, and is quite puzzling. I read other comments where slurs are hurled freely toward opponents, yet these people are immune from condemnation, due to their peculiar political orientation. But when I try to show the limitations of the phrasing on an old form, all hell breaks loose and I’m viciously attacked and defamed. Weird.

Scientist, of course Obama sr, may have given “African” as his race. That is not what the whole issue is about- the box in question is a question about the fathers race, but the 9 is a reference to the race of the child. If the 9 can legally work both ways, so be it but show me how that is spelled out.

david: Scientist, of course Obama sr, may have given “African” as his race. That is not what the whole issue is about- the box in question is a question about the fathers race, but the 9 is a reference to the race of the child. If the 9 can legally work both ways, so be it but show me how that is spelled out.

What is the race of the child of an African and a white? Seems like “9” would be a reasonable guess, since there was no category for mixed (there may be one today). So, “9 for father, “1” for mother and “9” for child is perfectly kosher (that means good).

Let’s move to the bigger issue. Do you believe the ridiculous fairy tale of an 18-year-old-woman travelling 12,000 miles over 5 flights and 72 hrs minimum to have a baby in a third world country and then making the return trip, possibly sneaking across the Canadian or Mexican border? If you do, you are insane. If you don’t then what do some pencil marks matter, since obviously President Obama was born where his parents lived, just as I was, you were, Doc was and everybody else you know was.

This whole birther attempt to nitpick is simply overwhelmed by the lack of any plausible story for a birth anywhere other than Hawaii. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, son.

Exchange students from African nations usually introduce themselves to Americans as being from “Africa” or being an “African” ( at least initially) due to their (correct) perception that most Americans don’t know where , or have never heard of, their nation of origin. They say “:African” to avoid awkwardness or confusion. This is not done as much now as back then, though.

But going from this to someone giving the same response out to be used on an official gov form, that might be less likely. For one thing, the question is much different from “where are you from”

Scientist: Let’s move to the bigger issue. Do you believe the ridiculous fairy tale of an 18-year-old-woman travelling 12,000 miles over 5 flights and 72 hrs minimum to have a baby in a third world country and then making the return trip

I want to thank the Denialists for helping re-elect President Obama. I live in a city that is 50% black, and I cannot describe the anger. As one neighbor said to me, “No white man ever had to show his birth certificate.”

david: scientist, 9 for father ….really means 9 for “race of child” the father is not the child.

The father and the child are both “9”s. The father is “9” for African and the child is “9” for mixed. It really isn’t that hard. Stop being dense (or pretendiing to be dense).

david: Also, exactly what are you talking about, this mad dash for the border, on the part of Stanley Dunham? huh?

Without a believable story as to how and why the President would be born anywhere but Hawaii, there is no motive to forge a birth certificate. No motiive = didn’t happen. The birth certificate is REAL, my friend. Pencil marks don’t change that essential FACT.

I say again, unless you give me a credible story for birth outside Hawaii, the pencil marks are completely irrelevant. Do you get it now? Should I repeat it again? Give me your birth story or go home. And make it good.

david: scientist, 9 for father ….really means 9 for “race of child” the father is not the child.

The race block with the ‘9’ is for the race of the father. The CCP insists that based on their 1961 document, which is actually form 1968, this means ‘not stated’ but the 1961 shows ‘9’ to mean ‘other non-white’ although it does not specify the value for the race of the parents, it makes perfect sense that the same code would be used.

david: But going from this to someone giving the same response out to be used on an official gov form, that might be less likely. For one thing, the question is much different from “where are you from”

On the contrary, according to Kenya census documentation, African is proper for the description of race and since race is self-reported, african is a reasonable description for race. Heck I found an INS document which showed race to be Kenya.

david: Scientist, of course Obama sr, may have given “African” as his race. That is not what the whole issue is about- the box in question is a question about the fathers race, but the 9 is a reference to the race of the child. If the 9 can legally work both ways, so be it but show me how that is spelled out.

Why would the code for race for child be different from race for parent? Even the 1968 document shows that the race codes are the same.
You are not making much sense to me here.

uh, scientist, the 9 column has a heading, to indicate exactly what and how it is to be used, apparently- its to be used for race of child, and not to be used for a q. about race of father, but somehow it is. Get it?

david: nbc, can you give me a breakdown of the result of this 1961 census, hmm? Understand now?

Not really. Can you make a coherent argument so that we can all determine what you are talking about.

I understand that African was a perfectly good representation for race in Kenya and so it is no surprise that Barack Obama used this to describe his race. On other documents, the race was Kenya, again, these are self reported descriptors.

Nothing to weird here. And while the document for 1961 does not describe the race of the parents, it makes perfect sense that the same code is used as for the child, as this is common practice throughout these coding standards.

david: uh, scientist, the 9 column has a heading, to indicate exactly what and how it is to be used, apparently- its to be used for race of child, and not to be used for a q. about race of father, but somehow it is. Get it?

Yes, it is used for the race of the child, but why would the same coding not be used for the race of the parents?

foreigner: usually there are no letters in the electronically coded tapes.
Unless they changed them into numbers when they were transferred
to computer files, but that doesn’t look likely.
So, a “V” in the 1959 birth certificates appears strange.

For 1961, there is a column headed with a caption “Race of child” Nowhere does it mention race of father.

The 9 is put in a spot reserved for race of father, when , this 9 is meant for race of child.

This 9 business also pops up for a second column, the q. for business of father. Again, we see a 9 for race of child, supposedly. This stumped Dr. C, as I recall.

“African” may have been offered on the Brit/Kenyan 1961 census form, but so was almost every other racial /ethnic category, as expressed by “etc.” Plus , we dont even know how many “Kenyans” used the African term on this census. One percent? Five?

I was unaware that the so called “anti birthers” were wrapped up in some story about Stanley Dunham being involved in a strange transatlantic marathon and border smuggling operation. This is strange.

David appears to be confused as to how these tapes work There are specific offsets on the data tape which contain one or more bytes of information. There is a location on the tape where the child’s race is stored and there are 11 or 12 valid codes

1 White, 2 Black etc…

The claim by the CCP was that ‘9’ meant not stated, which is true for 1968 where such a ‘9’ is a valid entry for the race of the father or the mother, but not the child as its race is derived.

It makes perfect sense. But it does mean that you have to understand how data are stored on these tapes. See how a little ignorance can lead you down such a foolish path?

As to your african comment, it was to lay to rest the foolish claim that noone would use the term african when in fact it appears to be quite a normal descriptor for race. Since the race was self reported, the choice of ‘african’ hardly means anything.

So why is the CCP and other foolish birthers make such a big deal out of something to which they have no information?

What Dr C has shown is that ‘african’ is a reasonable descriptor for race used by someone from Kenya.

david: I was unaware that the so called “anti birthers” were wrapped up in some story about Stanley Dunham being involved in a strange transatlantic marathon and border smuggling operation. This is strange.

I will ask again and keep asking, what is YOUR story regarding the President’s birth? People here can tell you i don’t give up until I get an answer.

Let me try to explain this in simplest terms. Imagine you sit in front of a computer and the computer asks you to enter the race of the child. You will enter 1 if the child is white, 2 if he is black, and so on, all the way to 9 for ‘other non-white’ and ‘0’ and ‘V’ for (partial) Hawaiian.

The document is not clear if the race of the father, and mother are stored, at most there is a reference to white/non-white which is a derived field, obtained from values in other fields. So it seems reasonable that such values were in fact reported and that the same coding was used for the race of the mother (1 – white 2 – black and so on) and the father.

Scientist: Thta is ALL I care about. I do not care about pencil marks. OK?

Well, the pencil marks are interesting and while some have suggested that ‘9’ disproves that this could have been referring to Barack Obama Sr, more level headed people have shown how ‘9’ would be perfectly understandable as the code in 1961 referred to ‘other non-white’ only in 1964 did the codes change. Given the short duration, it would also be quite understandable that Mrs Lee may not remember.

No mysteries here. Same with the term ‘african’.

Poor birthers still have nothing other than their ignorance and fears to guide them while the enlightened side has official documents, and the express certification and verification of President Obama’s native birth by the Department of Health in Hawaii.

I think actually you hit upon it accidentally, Scientist. The tsunami you mentioned carried Ann Dunham all the way to Kenya, where she gave birth. Then to get home, being a good old-fashioned Kansas girl, she clicked her heels three times while saying there is no place like home…

Scientist: I will ask again and keep asking, what is YOUR story regarding the President’s birth?People here can tell you i don’t give up until Iget an answer.

Oh and ‘9’ means in 1968 unknown in addition to not stated. So if African was too vague to be encoded, one may even understand why a ‘9’ would be used under 1968 coding standards. Again, nothing really of any relevance…

Paper: I think actually you hit upon it accidentally, Scientist. The tsunami you mentioned carried Ann Dunham all the way to Kenya, where she gave birth. Then to get home, being a good old-fashioned Kansas girl, she clicked her heels three times while saying there is no place like home…

Now that’s a good story. You see david, Paper is not wasting his time like you are.

By the way, for those who mock stories, it is how humans assimilate information. Neuroscientists have shown this conclusively. Trial lawyers know this as well. Supposing you wanted to convict someone of forgery, but you couldn’t come up with a story to tell the jury as to why they forged a document. Do you think you could get a conviction? I doubt it, because jurors want to understand the story. If the story makes no sense they will acquit.

Not the way the CCP says it, but the way it is here: 9 means race of child, and the Q, where it turns up is for race of father. These two dont mix, since Im getting info above that 2 is for black, esp.

Its said the 9 cuts across the board. Ok, where is this stated?

AS to my own theories, its possible he was born in Hawaii, but the way he has behaved, and the way his supporters have behaved has weakened the claim. ( The short receipt BC was initially released and when people asked to see the long form, the Presidents supporters mocked everyone with high childishness, saying very loudly and crudely – this is all there is, the LF does not exist, so shut up and sit down !! When it was later tepidly admitted that, well, maybe there is a copy of the long form, somewhere” they yelled as loud and as crudely as they could ” well, you cant see that one, its private” as if the prez could never have this one let go…..and on and on. I’m decidedly not impressed with the demeanor or decorum (lack thereof) or racialist overtones of the pro Obama anti birther types, at all. Ive seen Bush and Kerry;s grades, why not Obama’s? etc…it goes on and on.

I am also curious if, in the interests of fairness, david, you would be so kind as to comment on Romney’s bc, which says “Void” and has the bottom cut off. Would you say it is a better or worse document than either of Obama’s? There is an election and one of those 2 guys will be President. You could prove that Obama is a liar, but if Romney is a worse liar, then that would still be in Obama’s favor.

david: PS, didn’t McCain say he was born on a US military base that didn’t exist when he was born? Didnt it take an act of Congress to make him official, they saw his BC but we didn’t

Congress did NOT see McCain’s birth certificate, only a single reporter saw it for 15 minutes, no copies allowed. You are just a fount of misinformation. You really ought to hang it up, this isn’t really a fair fight.

I think Chomsky refers to himself as a “libertarian socialist” Ive read about seven of his books and enjoyed them very much.

When I said Congress, I was referring to a few members, not the whole gang… I remember somewhere about this, I think you are referring to a Washington Post article where he (McCain) supposedly offered one reporter a brief look at his BC

david: Romney might turn out to be a big liar, he already is a huge security threat to the entire world.

Romney or Obama are the choices, my friend. That is the reality. So, I will take that as a half-hearted endorsement of Obama. We have survived 4 years of him and done OK, so 4 more should be a piece of cake. Romney is an unknown and that is risky.

Majority will, Congress did certify McCain in some capacity or to a certain extent, even if I dont recognize the action, are you saying Congress did nothing at all to help poor ole McCain? No resolution or whatnot?

david: When I said Congress, I was referring to a few members, not the whole gang… I remember somewhere about this, I think you are referring to a Washington Post article where he (McCain) supposedly offered one reporter a brief look at his BC

Not a single member of Congress saw McCain’s b.c. None has ever said they did.

Yes, they passed a resolution, but they did so without ever seeing the b.c.

You see david, no President has ever released his b.c. prior to Obama. Some placed it in their Presidential llibrary after they left office. Do you know Reagan’s b.c. was created when he was 32 years old? Eisenhower’s was similar.

david:
Majority will, Congress did certify McCain in some capacity or to a certain extent, even if I dont recognize the action, are you saying Congress did nothing at all to help poor ole McCain? No resolution or whatnot?

It was a non-binding resolution, like an opinion, with no legal significance or bearing.

“. . . the nonbinding Senate resolution passed Wednesday night is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks.”

So what about the Reagan’s or Eisenhower’s BC….what matters right now is Obama’s and Romney s. Where can I see Rowney’s ? Whats up with the VOID stuff?

Its not a weak endorsement of Obama, Obama has violated the Constitution on several points and he should be impeached, removed from office, then criminally indicted, tried convicted and then sent to prison for the rest of his life.

He chaired the UN security council, he obliterated Libya against the war powers act, and arguably joined foreign nations as a party to a lawsuit against one of our states, those are three instances,

Then there is the federalizing of certain state statutes, he’s unleashing 30,000 spy drones over the skies of America, and he thinks he can execute citizens with no indictment or trial…He re signed the Patriot Act, and signed the NDAA, which MSNBC said or strongly implied put us a hair away from martial law…….he also has TSA goons sticking their hands down our family members pants at the airports when he could stop this nonsense with just one phone call… the list is endless.

Romney is a special danger, hes got the whole Bush-neo con zio terror team for advisers,….

This whole either/or, left /right nonsense is what is causing the mess,. People need to grow up and see that both major political parties and their allies are murderous outlaw gangs. this idea that one side is good while the other side is bad is just simple minded childishness,.

To Doc, i didnt want to go into politics but I was asked several questions….

david:
Majority will, Congress did certify McCain in some capacity or to a certain extent, even if I dont recognize the action, are you saying Congress did nothing at all to help poor ole McCain? No resolution or whatnot?

Majority Will: It was a non-binding resolution, like an opinion, with no legal significance or bearing.

“. . . the nonbinding Senate resolution passed Wednesday night is simply an opinion that has little bearing on an arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks.”

What is really interesting is that President Obama had already released a book and it was well-known his father was not an American Citizen, and yet there was no “arcane constitutional debate that has preoccupied legal scholars for many weeks.” And yet, we had many court cases by people who thought they knew better that somehow the President was not a natural-born citizen than all those legal scholars who had no problem debating about whether McCain was a natural-born citizen. Shows how out-of-touch birthers are to the actual realities, David.

david: Obama has violated the Constitution on several points and he should be impeached, removed from office, then criminally indicted, tried convicted and then sent to prison for the rest of his life.

I feel sorry for people who cant see that this is a stage managed election and that the BC issue is fueled by both sides of the same coin. I only get involved with the BC stuff because its so much fun.

david:
I feel sorry for people who cant see that this is a stage managed election and that the BC issueis fueled by both sides of the same coin. I only get involved with the BC stuff because its so much fun.

John Woodman: As noted by nbc, according to the tape specs, there was no such code. It seems to have been added in 1964. See the 1964 vital statistics manual, appendix — I think — d. Going from memory here. Maybe page d-7?

Has someone compared the years that are available? What’s available for the 1) Manual, 2) tape layout, 3) results? Has Hawaii published any annual stats themselves?

I’d like to apologize for having done that earlier myself. I suppose, thinking that I had already retired, I got a bit lazy. In the end, I came to my senses, and said to myself, “Read the Stupid Manual.” I went and read the stupid manual, and got the answers I was looking for.

Dr. Conspiracy:
That’s an interesting question, and one to which I do not know the answer. If I had to speculate, I would say they exist. That said, I’m not sure what use it would be. Occupation and Parents’ race aren’t in the file, nor are there any names.

In any case, I filed a FOIA request for the file.

Has anyone tried to get the manuals at the state level? Hawaii or any other state?

“African” was not widely used as a racial designation in British controlled colonies /censusin 1961. ” African” seems too broad a term, this can cover many types of people.

What would be really good for the cause, would be for BC’s for other people from 1961 Hawaii to come forward with the same “African ” designation, since we know there was more than one. That would be fantastic.

This is a pretty famous book as it was the first all-Africa travel guide published. My library has 3 copies of later editions — this is a first edition that I had to get off Ebay. Each country has a chapter. The Kenya chapter contains the following race classifications: European, African, Asian, Multi-racial. Note that the book puts descendants of Indians in the Asian category.

These designations are not the same for other countries. South Africa’s entry refers to Afrikaners, Europeans, “coloreds” or mulattos, Cape Malays, Indians, and Africans. (I didn’t see any Asian references.) BTW — the 1996 South African Census has the following groups: African/Black, Coloured, Indian/Asian, White, Unspecified/other.

we still don’t know what codes Hawaii used in 1961.
It wasn’t just the codes from the DrC manual since there
are additional fields. Did they use the federal codes in box 9 ?
Any 1961 Hawaiian certificate with a “V” in box 9 might give some evidence.
The official 1961 vital statistics only lists white,negro,Indian,Chinese,Japanese,other
births while having classifying them into 9 groups, not 11.
Maybe not all states did report the 11 groups.
Are Filipino births in any US-1961 statistics ? That could give another hint.
The online (anonymized) birth certificates from 1968 and death certificates
from 1961 from the tapes contain no letters.
Maybe the Univac allowed letters but had to be recoded for the IBM
and death certificates had higher priority and were done on the IBM.
But what did Hawaii do, what computer, what system ?

david,
there are several problems and we still don’t really know what the 9 was supposed to code for.
But the point is, that Zullo apparently can’t know it either and showed the 1968 form in the video and said it was the federal code in box 9 and that was one of his major
points in the press conference and the written report

justlw,
>> The fed’s won’t code Kapiolani Hospital as 5
> There is no “5″ code on the BC for name of hospital. The “5″ to the left of that
> box is for data in a box on the facing page.

you mean, another document left to Obama’s ? The code still on the same
physical paper as Obama’s and presumably
coded before it was bound.
The Dr.C seems also to think it belongs to Obama’s in the 2011 thread

Race
Of 9,128 male births in Hawaii, only 116 Negro males (1.27% of all births), 1,263 Other males (minus Hawaiian and part-hawaiian)(14% of all births)

From the instructions:

“The category “white” includes, in addition to persons reported as “white,” those reported as Mexican or Puerto Rican. With one exception, a reported mixture of Negro with any other race is included in the Negro group; other mixed parentage is classified according to the race of the nonwhite parent and mixtures of nonwhite races to the race of the father. The exception refers to a mixture of Hawaiian and any other race, which is classified as Part-Hawaiian. In most tables a less detailed classification of “white” and “nonwhite” is used.”

The concept of race as it has been used by the Bureau of the
Census is derived from that which is commonly accepted by the general public. It
does not, therefore, reflect clear-cut definitions of biological stocks, and several categories used obviously refer to nationality. “Color” divides the population into two
groups, white and nonwhite. The nonwhite population consists of Negroes, American
Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, and all other groups not classified as white.
Persons of Mexican birth or ancestry who are not definitely Indian or of other non-
white stock are included in the white population. Persons of mixed parentage are
placed in the race or color classification of the nonwhite parent.

Beginning with the 1960 Census, however, information regarding color and race
was obtained by self-enumeration or self-reporting, whereas formerly race and color
classification was obtained in most cases by the Census enumerator’s observation

SO — the Father’s Race and Mother’s Race coding key HAS to be the same as the Child’s Race. The coder needs to be able to look at both parents and see it 1) they are the same; if not, 2) is either one Negro, and 3) is either one white.

Paul Pieniezny:
The claim that nurses would have had to change “African” into negro “because it was an obvious error” is absurd: the nurse who would have had to do that administrative task, would probably not have seen Obama sr. How would she have known that Obama sr looked like an American negro, rather than like a Mororoccan or a Boer?

I’ve seen Hawaii birth certificates (short form) that say American, Polish, White, and Caucasian. The nurses didn’t change them, obviously. They reported what the parents wrote and the coder figured out what to put. I’ve also see Balinese and Korean. The actual codes include some country of origins (Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino) but not all — plus they changed a few times as we’ve seen. Nurses can’t be expected to care about the classification coding. The coders were also doing the coding miles from the hospital and days away from the birth.

The whole thing isn’t as black and white as some think. (pun intended.)

john:
Arpaio’s team was able to contact Verna Lee to determine just how the codes were actually implementated.According to her, Code “9″ was specified to mean the data was “missing”.

Look at the rest of the fields in the 1961 and 1968 tape file layouts. There were major changes between the two in many of the fields. In 1961, some of the fields had “X” or X bl” for “Not Stated”. (bl meant blank) In 1968, some of those had changed to “9” or “99”.

(The allowed values for Age of Mother in 1961 were 0 to 99, in 1968 they were 12-49. Number of children born alive in 1961 was 01 to 99, in 1968 it was 01 to 54, with 99 being Not stated. I found those all amusing. Geek humor.)

With variation like that, no one should be able to answer what a 9 meant for a particular field in a particular year. Particularly not a 95 year old who had probably been retired for 30 years. (Except maybe Sheldon Cooper. Humorous Geek.)

foreigner:
usually there are no letters in the electronically coded tapes.
Unless they changed them into numbers when they were transferred
to computer files, but that doesn’t look likely.
So, a “V” in the 1959 birth certificates appears strange.

From the second page of the 1961 tape layout: V is printed as “+” and punched as 12th pos. (no idea what that means), X is printed as “-” and punched as 11th pos. bl is blank.

john:
Caucasion is coded as “1″ because it is considered a “white” race.By the same token, a person stating they were “African” would considered be “Negro” and be coded as such.

You need to get outside and travel a bit. Most of the world doesn’t divide people into black (or negro) and white. And particularly in Hawaii, of all the US states, nurses wouldn’t touch what a person writes in the race field of a form. We are a blended society. People often have a heritage of an Asian country (or countries), Portugal, Pacific Islander, and Northern European – just for starters. Want to have some fun? Do Census work here! Picking a category for ethnic heritage is quite the challenge for most people. Many choose the one which had the greatest influence on their family, although others refuse to answer, choose “other”, or submit a long list.

Negro is not a common term here and never has been, despite a strong military presence. It’s a southern US term, while the early “white” mainland haole influence in Hawaii historically came from NE US, with the west coast appearing as trade was increasingly established. Identity by country of ethnic heritage is far more likely, with African making perfect sense within our culture.

JimR: Dr. C. relies on the the 1961 code being the correct code to call Sherriff Joe a liar. But in his decoding part 2 post he admits the 1961 code isn’t correct either. Neither code presented here gives any info for Usual Occupation – Student = 0, Kind of Buisness or Industry – University = 9, etc. Which is it?

Dude please watch your self.

Forget the number 9 for a second. Arpaio and Zullo presented documentation about the codeing specification and stated unambiguously that they were the 1961 codes.

Doc has PROVED that the specs that A&Z said were 1961 codes were actually 1968 codes. That is the lie, pure and simple. The 1968 document is clearly labeled 1968, and the Doc has demonstrated that the A&Z document is exactly the same 1968 document he found years ago.

When A&Z then try to interpret the number 9 according to the 1968 specification, they are wrong, and they were wrong based on a bald faced lie. A lie that they knew was a lie. They could not have been deceived, the document is clearly and unambiguously labeled 1968.

charo: Where his [Dr. C’s] theory, and Zullo’s fall short, is why would the same “race qualifier” code be used both for the fathers race and for the fathers business/industry? “9″ would have to be a universal/general/interchangeable catch-all code. I can see it being in the race field – but where is the chart that explains it being in the “business” field?

Why on earth would a race qualifier code be placed in a business/industry field? Are there “White Businesses” and “Indian Businesses”?

The number 9 in the business/industry field is a business/industry qualifier not a race qualifier. The values in the two fields are not related.

The number 9 comes from a completely different code set. It is most likely a field that was not required on the Federal Stats, so the Feds didn’t provide a standardized code set for it. Hawai’is system required it so they applied their own code set. You need to get the 1961 coding instructions from Hawai’i to find the answer as to what it means, though ‘Student’ would be a pretty reasonable guess, given that Obama Sr. was a student.

The Feds probably didn’t even care what hospital. They might want to know hospital v home delivery though. Then again, maybe they didn’t care at all, and it was Hawai’i that was interested in that datum and so used their own code for it.

It isn’t necessarily that every year has a different codeing and therefore 9 is different every year.

The point is that each different KIND of data field has its own code set. There is no reason for unrelated fields to have related code sets.

Punching a hole in the 12th position was known as making a 12-punch and was accomplished by keying the ‘+’ (plus sign) on the keypunch keyboard. Likewise an 11-punch was accomplished by keying the ‘-‘ (minus sign).

To encode the number -8 (minus 8) you would key the 8, then backspace and overpunch the minus sign. You did this when you needed the space on the card. There were only 80 columns remember, so this was an early (c1920’s?) ‘data compression’ technique. Usually, a positive number left the 12-punch blank and you only worried about overpunching the negative numbers.

The overpunching technique was a PITA, and when it could be avoided they would put the minus sign in its own column.

Dave: What about the alleged recent discovery of a record of Obama’s birth being found in an archive in London?

show us the evidence then. Funny how they claim they did a search but have no printouts of the hand written notes, nothing. The original posting came from a site that Dr C has exposed as being somewhat creative in its arguments and evidence.

Dave: Since the 9 business seems to be unsolvable, Doc and Zulloes efforts notwithstanding, lets move along…

So you admit that the CCP not only appears to have misrepresented the nature of the document they showed in the video but also that the evidence of the ‘9’ is insufficient to draw a conclusion of forgery?

Will the CCP be making a statement soon to present either the 1961 manual or admit that they were wrong? Remember the argument was that the ‘9’ was in reference to a federal code which meant ‘unknown or not stated’…

Dave: Since the 9 business seems to be unsolvable, Doc and Zulloes efforts notwithstanding, lets move along…

*rolls eyes* You really need to learn how to become more discerning and develop better judgment.

You seem to be too quick to leap towards any tabloid-level rumour-mongering that is fed in front of you… that is called being susceptible to gullibility.

Sorry, but unless there is some substantial real tangible EVIDENCE that could possibly match up to and legitimately challenge the OVERWHELMING body of OFFICIAL records, which support Obama’s birth in HI, then there is ZERO reason for any thinking person to take such specious rumours seriously at all…

When tabloid magazines show pictures of Batboy on their cover and interview people who talk about Lizard People, do you just instantly fall for those stories too???

Dave:
Anybody know anything about the Kenyan authorities saying that the birth record seems to have been tampered with?

What about the alleged recent discovery of a record of Obama’s birth being found in an archive in London?

Ah, no one can refute it. let me go again- the 9 pops up twice, so for 50% the Doc C is stumped, ok? ( the q. is:’ business of father’, the answer is 9, which means “race of child” but this does not follow, but there it is….. Now moving right along- the Q. is “race of father” , the given answer is 9, which means, not to the CCP but here, it means “race of child” again, this does not follow, but there it is anyway. Now- it has been suggested that this 9 can mean more than just “race of child” If so, then show how, where is this spelled out on the doc. There is a spot where 1, 2, 3 etc is used to denote the race of parent, but that is elsewhere. Lets see the exactitude , GO!

This has to be the dumbest thread I have read in a while. Why so much weight on a number. Look at a picture of his father, he is African…not 9. Even if there is never an explanation for the 9 coding…his father is still African! No amount of code magic will ever change that.

Dave: Now moving right along- the Q. is “race of father” , the given answer is 9, which means

Get a clue – absense of evidence is exactly that – ABSENSE of EVIDENCE. There is nothing to refute, because there is nothing to base your fantasy speculation on at all.

But hey, keep dancing around and convincing us you are nothing more than a pea-brained idiot with limited cognition skills…

*yawn*

Dave:
Ah, no one can refute it. let me go again- the 9 pops up twice, so for 50%the Doc C is stumped, ok? ( the q. is:’ business of father’, the answer is 9, which means “race of child”but thisdoes not follow, but there it is…..Now moving right along- the Q. is “race of father” , the given answer is 9, which means, not to the CCP but here, it means “race of child” again, this does not follow, but there it is anyway. Now- it has been suggested that this 9 can mean more than just “race of child”If so, then show how, where is this spelled out on the doc. There is a spot where 1, 2, 3 etc is used to denote the race of parent, but that is elsewhere. Lets see the exactitude , GO!

The specious speculation about nits of inconsequential nothingness simply boggles the mind…

*yawn*

But hey, when Arpaio’s clown show promises turned out to be such an underwhelming dud, the desperately bitter crazies have no other outlet for their delusions than to grasp at flimsy straws, so what else should we expect than such rabbit-hole silliness as this…

El Diablo Negro:
This has to be the dumbest thread I have read in a while. Why so much weight on a number. Look at a picture of his father, he is African…not 9. Even if there is never an explanation for the 9 coding…his father is still African! No amount of code magic will ever change that.

Sadly, I was there. I am the world’s worst keypuncher, so writing a program on cards was torture. I had successfully blocked out the + and – and the backspace (which as I recall was a very jerky clunky thing). No thanks for those memories. (But many thanks for the answer.)

El Diablo Negro:
This has to be the dumbest thread I have read in a while. Why so much weight on a number. Look at a picture of his father, he is African…not 9. Even if there is never an explanation for the 9 coding…his father is still African! No amount of code magic will ever change that.

No, we’ve had much dummer threads, as well as posters. The person coding the BC was doing it DAYS and MILES away from even a picture of Obama Sr. Say you have a stack of docs in front of you to code. You look at the BC, you look at the chart, you call your supervisor over, you have the following conversation.
“What do I code for African?”
“Hmmm… it could be Negro. Could also be Arab. There’s all that violence in South Africa right now that I saw on the news between the Negros and the Whites.”
“Negros in Hawaii are pretty rare and I’ve never seen African or Arab come up before.”
“Good point. Unless we know for sure, we’re better off putting Other.”
“OK, did that count as my break?”

OR

“Mrs. Lee, what code do I use for “African”?”
“If it isn’t on the list, put “Other.”
“Thanks.”

Question about the number nine. . .if it means “non-white other” then why was it used on both the father’s race AND to answer “kind of business or industry”. Really? He’s in the business of “non-white, other?”.

Lynn:
Question about the number nine. . .if it means “non-white other” then why was it used on both the father’s race AND to answer “kind of business or industry”.Really? He’s in the business of“non-white, other?”.

I can’t find the comments now but a person with the handle Keith suggested as I understand that there are entirely different Code sets for each kind of category so taking the birth certificate at face value, the 9 Code meant student for business/industry and it meant other non-white for race. I replied that it is just as possible that 9 meant not stated for both (it could apply to both logically) and that the chance of that being the case was just as plausible as there being two 9’s on the form having different meanings totally by happenstance. We are both speculating, IMO. He lives in Australia so his response will likely be forthcoming tomorrow.

charo: I can’t find the comments now but a person with the handle Keith suggested as I understand that there are entirely different Code sets for each kind of category so taking the birth certificate at face value,

A “1” in box 2 did not mean “white” it meant male and a “2” in box 2 did not mean “negro” it meant female. So yes, different boxes would have different code sets.

Lynn:
Question about the number nine. . .if it means “non-white other” then why was it used on both the father’s race AND to answer “kind of business or industry”.Really? He’s in the business of“non-white, other?”.

If you’re taking a multiple-choice test and the answer on question one is ‘B’, does that mean the answer to question 2 is ‘B’? It could be, but that doesn’t mean it is. Each line has different coding that means different things for each line. It’s done that way so the data-entry person doesn’t have to spend hours typing in long-form each response. It also saves a bunch of storage space on the storage medium used at the time, which wasn’t even close to what we have available to us nowadays.

Each data field has its own coding system. Race can use code “1” for one thing and Occupation can use code “1” for something else; however, in the 1961 data, code “x” is often used to indicate “not stated.” Here are the not stated values used in the data:

Lynn: Question about the number nine. . .if it means “non-white other” then why was it used on both the father’s race AND to answer “kind of business or industry”. Really? He’s in the business of “non-white, other?”.

What’s funny is that as someone who has developed specifications for automated systems to do just this kind of coding, I have sat in meetings with vital statistics officials and had similar discussions. They develop policies to deal with the question.

One of the more humorous examples was what to do with “Martian.” Remember, that race is self-declared by the informant (typically the mother) and there are folks who think they have been impregnated by space aliens and “Martian” really does come up (particularly around New Mexico). Some jurisdictions won’t take “Martian” for an answer, considering it facetious (the exception to the “whatever the parent says” rule). Others, I seem to recall, will take it. That said, it is still necessary to find a code to report to the NCHS.

That was a long time ago, when things were simpler. The birth certificate race code table TODAY is 31 pages long!

Dr. Conspiracy:
What’s funny is that as someone who has developed specifications for automated systems to do just this kind of coding, I have sat in meetings with vital statistics officials and had similar discussions. They develop policies to deal with the question.

I still do all sorts of coding like that. You want to make it as easy and fast as you can for the data entry people. Another way to look at it is like menu options…if you select 9 on one menu and it sends you to another menu, option 9 doesn’t mean the same thing on the next menu…and you definitely don’t want people having to type in the complete description for the menu options every time.

Jim: I still do all sorts of coding like that.You want to make it as easy and fast as you can for the data entry people.Another way to look at it is like menu options…if you select 9 on one menu and it sends you to another menu, option 9 doesn’t mean the same thing on the next menu…and you definitely don’t want people having to type in the complete description for the menu options every time.

Wouldn’t having one number stand for the same concept throughout also be easy? It’s not like putting the 9 in the space in this case would send you to another option as a menu would. As noted above, the coding was simpler then. I put a link on a thread to My Very Own Point of View where the blogger found references to the use of not stated in a footnote of a manual, but I don’t have the specifics at hand. If you are interested, I’ll find the link, but I have an errand to run.

charo: What if the mother didn’t know the race of the father or didn’t want to relate it? What value would be used? Think of scenarios other than Obama.

The race of the mother.

“When the race of only one parent was missing or not stated or ill-defined, the race of the other determined that of the child. Beginning in1964 when race was not stated, the race of the child was allocated, as the birth record was electronically processed, to white or Negro according to the race of the child on the preceeding record. If the race on the preceeding record was white, the assignment was to white; if it was to nonwhite, the assignment was to Negro.”

Notice what the procedure was prior to 1964.

There is also this:

“In 1965, as in years prior to 1964, ill-defined or not clearly identifiable races such as “oriental” or “yellow” were assigned to a specific category such as non-white, Chinese or Japanese.”

Dave: Anybody know anything about the Kenyan authorities saying that the birth record seems to have been tampered with?
What about the alleged recent discovery of a record of Obama’s birth being found in an archive in London?

Again I re-iterate my demand for a credible story as to why a pregnant 18 year old with no money would have (or could have) travelled from Hawaii to Kenya (or even Britain). That is the first step and one the birthers have never succeeded in responding to with anything remotely credible. Until such a story is proferred, all “records” of a putative foreign birth are of no value whatsoever. This isn’t corporate media vs blogs, but simple common sense.

Anti-birthers have a completely credible and reasonable story regarding a Hawaiian birth-both parents lived in Hawaii. That makes a Hawaiian birth the default position. It really doesn’t even require proof, since it is self-evidently true in the absence of an alternate narrative.

charo: What if the mother didn’t know the race of the father or didn’t want to relate it?What value would be used?Think of scenarios other than Obama.

One of the things that you don’t seem to understand is that the people doing the coding probably never saw the parents or the child. They only had what was written on the BC by the parents to figure out the race of the child.

charo: You keep referring to the race of the child when I am talking about thefather.

I believe Doc said up above they would generally use “x” for unknown or unstated. But there is no evidence Obama Sr. refused to state a race. He seems to have said “African” since that is what they wrote and that was coded as “9”-other nonwhite, which is certainly reasonable. With only 9 categories you can’t cover every possibility (people from India are neither white, nor black, nor Chinese/Japanese, so I guess they would have gotten other nonwhite in 1961). There weren’t that many people from India in the US in 1961, so it probably wasn’t a big deal. I’m sure they have their own category (perhaps several) today.

Well, well, doctor, the poster called NBC is claiming to know more than you…..in context, 9 means XXXx, well, its nice to be so self assured and comfortable with a XXXX . this being the certitude of knowledge., ha!…Must be some sort of divine revelation, lol…..This is funny. …nbc , go back and re- read the prompt. and provide the evidence, in quotations marks…. Now the doc is saying – or implying- Arpaio is just using all of this to raise funds. This flies in the face the good sheriffs track record and decades of experience- meaning, to the dense- there is no need for tricks to win again. A 12 yr old can see this.

I think the doc sees the joke behind all of this and you, his sympathetic posters, are merely his suckers. Meta- anyone? haha. The prize goes to who ever can follow along…. IF the 9 can mean other than “race of child” as posted, then show this. A simple request….If not, then all of you have failed and you need to go home to suck the proverbial thumb…. A statement by an opponent about fund raising based upon a story, tsk tsk, ever heard about something called sour grapes? This site is littered with the racialist supporter, the hater-in-chief, the guilt ridden whitey, the one who got a 50% on the 9 issue….Last I heard, a 50% earned someone an F. haha. Now- we will see just how small minded and self righteous the proprietor is….Does Voltaire’s dictum apply here or is this a dictatorship?? If no, then I have won absolutely.

Scientist: I believe Doc said up above they would generally use “x” for unknown or unstated.But there is no evidence Obama Sr. refused to state a race.He seems to have said “African” since that is what they wrote and that was coded as “9″-other nonwhite, which is certainly reasonable. With only 9 categories you can’t cover every possibility (people from India are neither white, nor black, nor Chinese/Japanese, so I guess they would have gotten other nonwhite in 1961).There weren’t that many people from India in the US in 1961, so it probably wasn’t a big deal.I’m sure they have their own category (perhaps several) today.

The examples he gave seemed more like “not applicable” to me. But we could go round and round forever, without something more concrete.

charo: But we could go round and round forever, without something more concrete.

Or we could stop and admit that pencil marks don’t matter, the information in the boxes is what does. Especially the ones for Place of Birth and Date of Birth, which are all one needs to know to determine whether the person is qualified to be President.

Let’s suppose there were no pencil marks at all, or the clerks were doodling Pick 4 numbers or following Roger Maris’ quest for 60 home runs (which happened in 1961); would that invalidate the information in the boxes? The answer is no.

Dave-Where are the pencil marks on Romney’s b.c You can pretend he is irrelevant, but there is an election coming and either he or Obama will be President. So his b.c, is just as important or unimportant and is to be judged on the same basis as Obama’s. So where are HIS pencil marks?

Dave:
Well, well, doctor, the poster called NBC is claiming to know more than you…..in context, 9 means XXXx, well, its nice to be so self assured and comfortable with a XXXX . this beingthe certitude of knowledge., ha!…Must be some sort of divine revelation, lol…..This is funny. …nbc , go backand re- read the prompt. and provide the evidence, in quotations marks….Now the doc is saying – or implying- Arpaio is just using all of this to raise funds. This flies in the face the good sheriffs track record and decades of experience- meaning, to the dense- there is no need for tricks to win again. A 12 yr old can see this.

I think the doc sees the joke behind all of this and you, his sympathetic posters, are merely his suckers.Meta- anyone? haha.The prize goes to who ever can follow along…. IF the 9 can mean other than “race of child” as posted, then show this. A simple request….If not, then all of you have failed and you need to go home to suck the proverbial thumb…. A statement by an opponent about fund raising based upon a story, tsk tsk, ever heard about something calledsour grapes? This site is littered with the racialist supporter, the hater-in-chief, the guilt ridden whitey, the one who got a 50% on the 9 issue….Last I heard, a 50% earned someonean F. haha.Now- we will see just how small mindedand self righteous the proprietor is….Does Voltaire’s dictumapply here or is this a dictatorship?? If no, then I have won absolutely.

Scientist: Or we could stop and admit that pencil marks don’t matter, the information in the boxes is what does.Especially the ones for Place of Birth and Date of Birth, which are all one needs to know to determine whether the person is qualified to be President.

Let’s suppose there were no pencil marks at all, or the clerks were doodling Pick 4 numbers or following Roger Maris’ quest for 60 home runs (which happened in 1961); would that invalidate the information in the boxes?The answer is no.

I suppose we could ignore every post on OCT since the 2008 election was already decided, no law suits have moved forward, … . The posts could just stand as FYIs. Yet there seems to be a significant number of people who continue to spend quite a few hours here many days of the week. I found myself doing it and thought “why?” Here I am again after backing out of my resolve to never return, especially because this is not always a good place to be. It’s too hard to be a casual commenter here.

charo: I suppose we could ignore every post on OCT since the 2008 election was already decided, no law suits have moved forward, … . The posts could just stand as FYIs. Yet there seems to be a significant number of people who continue to spend quite a few hours here many days of the week. I found myself doing it and thought “why?” Here I am again after backing out of my resolve to never return, especially because this is not always a good place to be. It’s too hard to be a casual commenter here. Begone Charo! Spend your free time with your kids!!!

Well, charo, why would you assume that posts on a web site have any meaning in the real world? Courts consider the matter resolved (as is obvious to anyone who has followed the cases). The 2012 election will not be decided by pencil marks on a 1961 document. Arpaio’s “investigation” is a joke, because unlike all other law enforcement investigations in the Universe, there is no actual goal of bringing charges. This web site and all the others are like episodes of Seinfeld, they are about nothing. Still, that doesn’t stop them from being entertaining if you have the right mindset.

Scientist: Or we could stop and admit that pencil marks don’t matter, the information in the boxes is what does.

I disagree with this statement.

I have always disagreed with this statement.

I always believed that one could test the image for information-related clues as to whether it was genuine or a fake. The importance of any such clue has to be decided for that particular clue. But the information is relevant.

In fact, about the first words out of my mouth after Arpaio’s press conference were that if what they were saying was truly correct, it could be enough to raise legitimate suspicion of forgery.

About 4 hours later I was on TV stating, for the record, that I was already — by that point — skeptical that they actually possessed the “1961 Vital Statistics Instruction Manual” they claimed to have.

And it very, very much appears I was right.

The other side of this coin is that when an item checks out — particularly if it is an extremely obscure item such as this one — that verification carries with it authentication value.

Given the scarcity of births in Hawaii with a 1-Caucasian mother, and a 9-Other nonwhite father, any forgery theory must now posit that the supposed forger went to the trouble to find the 1961 statistics coding tape codes, and pencil on the appropriate code.

Therefore, in my opinion, the fact that this very obscure penciled “9” checks out as meaning exactly and precisely what it should be if the certificate were genuine — “other nonwhite” — on top of all of the other authenticating evidence we’ve seen, is pretty much enough to put the legitimacy of this document beyond question, even for a skeptic from the “Show-Me” State such as myself.

John Woodman: In fact, about the first words out of my mouth after Arpaio’s press conference were that if what they were saying was truly correct, it could be enough to raise suspicion of forgery.

John, forgery is impossible. Why? Because Hawaii has consistently verified the information on the form. Now, if someone wants to say that Hawaii is lying and is in on the conspiracy, I would counter that they can no more forge one of their birth certificates than the Federal Reserve can counterfeit a $100 bill. If they were in on the conspiracy, they would simply produce a form to suit the needs. It’s their form and they know more about it than you, me, Doc and Zullo combined and could produce one that no one could possibly refute. Of course there is no conspiracy.

A further note: No birth story other than birth where the President’s parents lived in 1961 makes the slightest sense. You yourself have written a satiric piece mocking the Kenyan birth meme as absurd. So what would be the motivation to forge a Hawaiian birth certifiicate to report a Hawaiian birth?

No, not to me. My guess is that Dave spends a lot of time muttering to himself, and that his ramblings makes sense to him. That’s probably what they said about Samuel Beckett, too . . . maybe Dave should start writing plays.

What cracks me up about this whole thing is that if we take one of Zullo’s statements at face value — that they only found this data “two weeks ago” — that means it got them so hot and bothered that they immediately called for a press conference.

(Actually, if we take him literally, this revelation was of such import that they called the press conference three days before they learned about it, since the announcement was on July 1st. I’ll allow him some leeway there.)

In my more empathetic moments, this sort of rabid enthusiasm on Zullo’s part, coupled with his charming story during the presser about how it took Corsi 16 hours to break him, makes me think that perhaps he really isn’t as much complicit as he is a gullible dupe of the first water.

“Uh, doesn’t this say ‘1968’, Jerry?”

“Did I say you could touch that?! Give it here! It says ‘1961.’ Remember, I’ll worry about the details. You can go back to your Obama dartboard.”

charo: I suppose we could ignore every post on OCT since the 2008 election was already decided, no law suits have moved forward, … .The posts could just stand as FYIs.Yet there seems to be a significant number of people who continue to spend quite a few hours here many days of the week.I found myself doing it and thought “why?”Here I am again after backing out of my resolve to never return, especially because this is not always a good place to be.It’s too hard to be a casual commenter here.

Begone Charo!Spend your free time with your kids!!!

You need to learn which posters to ignore for which topic. Scientist is one to ignore when we are delving into the birth certificate arcanery. I’ve lost track of what your concern is. Can you restate it fresh in detail?

charo: Wouldn’t having one number stand for the same concept throughout also be easy? It’s not like putting the 9 in the space in this case would send you to another option as a menu would. As noted above, the coding was simpler then. I put a link on a thread to My Very Own Point of View where the blogger found references to the use of not stated in a footnote of a manual, but I don’t have the specifics at hand. If you are interested, I’ll find the link, but I have an errand to run.

It would, if you were coding the same thing throughout. But you aren’t, you’re coding different types of things. So, in this example, 9 for the race of the child means other non-white. So, why would you even have an option of other non-white under occupation? Yet, it is faster and more accurate if the data entry person only has to enter a single digit. So, you would have a menu of 1-9 for the race means caucasian, Hawaiian, etc on through other non-white. Where as 1-9 for the occupation field would mean banker, baker, on through to say student. The reason you see the pencil marks is that before entering the data, someone would go through the certificate and mark it with the correct codes for each field so that the data entry person would not be cross-referencing with the options while also trying to enter it. Much more efficient and accurate way of doing things.

I always believed that one could test the image for information-related clues as to whether it was genuine or a fake. The importance of any such clue has to be decided for that particular clue. But the information is relevant.

In fact, about the first words out of my mouth after Arpaio’s press conference were that if what they were saying was truly correct, it could be enough to raise legitimate suspicion of forgery.

About 4 hours later I was on TV stating, for the record, that I was already — by that point — skeptical that they actually possessed the “1961 Vital Statistics Instruction Manual” they claimed to have.

And it very, very much appears I was right.

The other side of this coin is that when an item checks out — particularly if it is an extremely obscure item such as this one — that verification carries with it authentication value.

Given the scarcity of births in Hawaii with a 1-Caucasian mother, and a 9-Other nonwhite father, any forgery theory must now posit that the supposed forger went to the trouble to find the 1961 statistics coding tape codes, and pencil on the appropriate code.

Therefore, in my opinion, the fact that this very obscure penciled “9″ checks out as meaning exactly and precisely what it should be if the certificate were genuine — “other nonwhite” — on top of all of the other authenticating evidence we’ve seen, is pretty much enough to put the legitimacy of this document beyond question, even for a skeptic from the “Show-Me” State such as myself.

I agree wholeheartedly, John. I find I need to have the details. I am a huge skeptic. If I want to confidently answer questions, I need to understand the process myself.

For example, knowing how the race of the child is decided is critical to understanding the coding. Seeing the reports that the data generates is also critical to the coding. It’s all part of the procedures. It IS possible to reverse-engineer the process from the inputs and outputs. This thread is the best place on the web for hashing out those details, if we can filter out the inevitable noise.

Jim: It would, if you were coding the same thing throughout.But you aren’t, you’re coding different types of things.So, in this example, 9 for the race of the child means other non-white.So, why would you even have an option of other non-white under occupation?Yet, it is faster and more accurate if the data entry person only has to enter a single digit.So, you would have a menu of 1-9 for the race means caucasian, Hawaiian, etc on through other non-white.Where as 1-9 for the occupation field would mean banker, baker, on through to say student.The reason you see the pencil marks is that before entering the data, someone would go through the certificate and mark it with the correct codes for each field so that the data entry person would not be cross-referencing with the options while also trying to enter it.Much more efficient and accurate way of doing things.

You actually have 13 available values for a 1 character non-alpha field. 0-9, +, -.

John Woodman: Given the scarcity of births in Hawaii with a 1-Caucasian mother, and a 9-Other nonwhite father, any forgery theory must now posit that the supposed forger went to the trouble to find the 1961 statistics coding tape codes, and pencil on the appropriate code.

On this point, if Hawaii is not part of a grand conspiracy, then they would, of course, not verify a forgery. It really is that simple. And if Hawaii were part of a grand conspiracy, they would probably have the 1961 codes somewhere in their archives or they could reconstruct them by looking through a good selection of 1961 birth certificates (all of which are in their custody) and seeing how various answers were coded.

There is no way from document analysis to convince a conspiracy theorist that there isn’t a conspiracy. The truly convincing argument to me (besides that I don’t generally believe in conspiracies) is that the probability of a birth in Hawaii is so likely and birth anywhere else is so unlikely that there is no reason for a conspiracy, since the simple truth supports the President.

Whatever4: You actually have 13 available values for a 1 character non-alpha field. 0-9, +, -.

Actually, if necessary, you’d go ahead and make it an alpha-numeric field if you needed more options and give yourself 36 options (0-9,A-Z), I stay away from special characters since they would require an extra keystroke for the shift key. Always want speed and accuracy when coding for data entry.

OK, found the FM to R. It seemed a little crazy that someone wouldn’t have come up with alphanumeric data representations for punched cards by then, but I didn’t turn up anything that described it until just now.

Scientist: John, forgery is impossible.Why? Because Hawaii has consistently verified the information on the form.Now, if someone wants to say that Hawaii is lying and is in on the conspiracy, I would counter that they can no more forge one of their birth certificates than the Federal Reserve can counterfeit a $100 bill.

If they were in on the conspiracy, they would simply produce a form to suit the needs.It’s their form and they know more about it than you, me, Doc and Zullo combined and could produce one that no one could possibly refute.Of course there is no conspiracy.

A further note:No birth story other than birth where the President’s parents lived in 1961 makes the slightest sense.You yourself have written a satiric piece mocking the Kenyan birth meme as absurd. So what would be the motivation to forge a Hawaiian birth certifiicate to report a Hawaiian birth?

I agree with part of what you said.

A document falsely attesting to Obama’s birth in Honolulu (assuming he was born elsewhere) would require complicity of somebody with access, by whatever means to the Hawaii Department of Health vital records.

Given the degree of attestation from Hawaii officials of both parties that Obama’s birth in Honolulu is genuine, such a scenario seems very unlikely.

But I, of course, am from the Show-Me State.

Now here’s the part I completely disagree with you about. Supposing that such a document were to be produced, by Hawaii State officials, using all of the official Hawaii equipment, etc., but deliberately and falsely attesting to a birth in their state which did not in fact take place, I would absolutely characterize that as a forgery. And I think well in excess 95% of Americans would as well — particularly if it were presented in the format of being a theoretical question, people’s own political interests were removed, etc.

Here’s the difference between the Treasury Department manufacturing a $100 and the Hawaii Department of Health manufacturing a birth certificate based on events which did not take place.

The $100 represents the full faith and credit of the United States government to honor that amount of value in the economic system. It is in fact virtually indistinguishable from all other legitimate $100 bills. I say “virtually indistinguishable” because it does carry a unique serial number.

One that in practice is never used for anything, except a bit of anti-counterfeiting measures. It frankly doesn’t matter what the serial number on your $100 bill is, as long as it was placed there by the Treasury.

A birth certificate is wholly different. A birth certificate is an official statement of fact. Is says that — to the true and honest knowledge and belief of the Hawaii government, based upon their due diligence in requiring solemnly presented statements by appropriate other authorities — including the delivering physician or other birth attendant — all of whom also provide evidence under penalty of law that their testimony is true — that the birth event of the person described did in fact happen in the place and in the manner described.

Those are the requirements of the law, and Hawaii officials are bound to them. If a Hawaii official certifies a birth which did not happen in Honolulu as having happened in Honolulu, that is a very serious breach of their office. And yes, such a document would be well described as a “forgery” — in this case, one perpetrated by a government official operating outside of his authority and outside of Hawaii and US law.

Finally, yes: You are correct. The scenario of Stanley Ann Dunham Obama having flown to Kenya to have her child alone in a foreign country IS — once you understand what that would have entailed — ludicrously ridiculous. And yes, I did write a satirical piece — the only one I think I’ve written on Obama matters, by the way — lampooning that scenario.

And I think the thing I enjoyed the most about writing that piece was creating a few ads.

John Woodman: One that in practice is never used for anything, except a bit of anti-counterfeiting measures. It frankly doesn’t matter what the serial number on your $100 bill is, as long as it was placed there by the Treasury.

I may matter to some degree. There are currency collectors who will pay a premium for special numbers. A really low number, a repeating sequence, or “radar notes” (like 12655621) do matter in some cases.

The Treasury does sell special batches of bills from their normal print runs. I remember seeing they had withheld a run of $2 bills that had the sequence “888XXXXX” (at least several consecutive 8s) for special sale (singles and uncut sheets of various sizes) in souvenir display folders. They were marketing these towards a Chinese-American customer base for which the number 8 is auspicious. Now they might have an incentive to print the same numbers repeatedly, although I suspect they don’t.

Scientist: On this point, if Hawaii is not part of a grand conspiracy, then they would, of course, not verify a forgery.It really is that simple.And if Hawaii were part of a grand conspiracy, they would probably have the 1961 codes somewhere in their archives or they could reconstruct them by looking through a good selection of 1961 birth certificates (all of which are in their custody) and seeing how various answers were coded.

I agree that if they were part of a grand conspiracy, there is at least a good chance someone would know or could decipher those codes.

On the other hand, these are codes from 50 years ago. Do you keep technical notes from 50 years ago lying around your office?

Bear in mind that we have a total of two to three entirely different functions here, as well.

We have the people whose job it is to work with birth certificate records, day in and day out. Actually, these days, such people probably don’t even access physical records. Most of them may not even have access to the old physical records any more.

So we may well have a different type of staffer, in charge of maintaining old, archived physical documents.

Doc can fill us in on this, but I don’t think either of these are the same people who maintain aggregate statistical information.

The people who maintain archives of aggregrate statistical information — they might know what those codes mean. But it seems to me that they are very unlikely to have access to the physical records.

And the people who actually have physical access — not so likely to understand those codes. Administrative types. File this. Go look for that. If you start talking about statistical computer record coding specifications to some of these folks, I suspect that you might get a very authentic deer-in-the-headlights look.

So how could the gap between those personnel be breached? It would take someone with a lot of authority, and even then it could arouse some real suspicion. Yes, I know you’re my supervisor, but why exactly are you invading my turf?

Now mind you, all of this theoretical hanky-panky must be supposed to have happened on a Republican watch.

We should also remember that the sum total of evidence for such a thing having happened — invalid and sometimes entirely idiotic birther claims notwithstanding — is entirely zero. We are in the realm of theoretical speculation here. We’re pretty much in the realm of the CIA having seen, through their time-travel experiments, that Obama was going to be President one day, and having approached him when he was a college student and advised him of the fact.

And while it’s not as implausible as the CIA/ time travel claims, or the teleportation to Mars as a teenager stories, it’s still well beyond the realm of the plausible. Republicans walked a tightrope of high risk to forge a birth certificate for their Presidential opponent of the opposite party? Give me a break.

No. All the evidence is consistent, in the same direction. Whatever you may think of him as a President, I see no sign the guy was born anywhere other than Hawaii.

Keep in mind that I was 11 years old in 1961, so my knowledge of office practice in that era is limited.

I presume coding (the pencil marks) were done by the same people that handle the paper certificates on an ongoing basis. Again, I presume the codes were punched on cards and any statistical work was done on the cards.

Based on responses I have received from the Hawaii Department of Health, they don’t have anything on old office practices and documentation.

That said, however, I think anyone with a stack of Hawaiian original birth certificates could figure out the codes fairly simply.

John Woodman: Doc can fill us in on this, but I don’t think either of these are the same people who maintain aggregate statistical information.

Not only do they need to insert a certificate into the bound volume, they have to insert a serially numbered certificate, correct as to the month of issue without causing a problem with the certificate that was removed. Further they have to get it into the index and into the 1961 newspapers.

John Woodman: A document falsely attesting to Obama’s birth in Honolulu (assuming he was born elsewhere) would require complicity of somebody with access, by whatever means to the Hawaii Department of Health vital records.

Jim: Actually, if necessary, you’d go ahead and make it an alpha-numeric field if you needed more options and give yourself 36 options (0-9,A-Z), I stay away from special characters since they would require an extra keystroke for the shift key.Always want speed and accuracy when coding for data entry.

Actually, I think this is before alphabetical keypunches. The cards only have numeric (0-9, +,-, blank). Any field requiring more than 13 gets 2 bits. (I haven’t looked at the IBM link yet, too close to bedtime. Nightmares may ensue.)

The IBM 026 punch is most likely what was in use in Hawaii in 1961 (It was what the CDC used until the 1970’s.) It didn’t have a numeric keypad, so you either had to press the NUM shift key for a number, or you programmed the shift into the drum card, in which case you had to hit the ALPH key to make it alphabetic.

Jim: Actually, if necessary, you’d go ahead and make it an alpha-numeric field if you needed more options and give yourself 36 options (0-9,A-Z), I stay away from special characters since they would require an extra keystroke for the shift key. Always want speed and accuracy when coding for data entry.

charo:
You keep referring to the race of the child when I am talking about the
father.

The second quote “In 1965, as in years prior to 1964…” has to be referring to the parents’ race as there is no place on a BC for the race of the child to be entered as “oriental’ or “yellow”. Entries like that could only occur on the parents’ race field.

Doh. I had each obstacle dealt with until you had to go and mention the 1961 newspapers. Now I’ll never be able to claim the Birther King prize. All I’m left with are the Jack-in-the-Box crumbs Jerome Corsi leaves on his plate. I am McTrumped.

D@m^ you, 1961!

1961. “Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch…”

Dr. Conspiracy:
Not only do they need to insert a certificate into the bound volume, they have to insert a serially numbered certificate, correct as to the month of issue without causing a problem with the certificate that was removed. Further they have to get it into the index and into the 1961 newspapers.

John Woodman: Now here’s the part I completely disagree with you about. Supposing that such a document were to be produced, by Hawaii State officials, using all of the official Hawaii equipment, etc., but deliberately and falsely attesting to a birth in their state which did not in fact take place, I would absolutely characterize that as a forgery

John, I think you are confusing the concept of forgery with fraud.

As I understand it, Scientist is saying that the Hawaii Department of Health cannot possibly forge a document that it issues — because by definition it is authorized to issue the documents. It could, in theory, issue a fraudulent document — that is, let’s say hypothetically someone bribes a DOH employee to enter entirely fake information into the database and then use that to generate & issue a COLB. That would be fraud, not forgery.

Here’s a simple analogy: If I steal your checkbook, write a check to myself for $50, and sign your name to it — that check and the signature is forged. On the other hand, if at a time when you have only $200 in your account, you write out a check for $5000, knowing full well that it won’t be honored by your bank — that check is fraudulent. But it isn’t forged, because you have authority to write and sign your own checks.

I think it comes into play in the birther scenario because you cannot prove fraud through document analysis. If Hawaii indeed issued the COLB & the LFBC, then looking for layers or smiley faces or debating the coding system is irrelevant — if in fact there is some sort of error or anomaly in production or printing, that does not in any way undermine the validity of the document.

On the other hand, fraud would be proven by investigating the facts behind the document production. Given that we know from contemporaneous published birth announcements that a birth record was in fact created for Barack Obama in Hawaii in August of 1961, then any such “fraud” must go back to that time frame. The only way to prove fraud is to come up with affirmative evidence that shows something other than what was reflected in the birth announcements & birth certificate.

Well, I admit, that particular bizarre example most definitely made me laugh…a lot! Much better than yawning… 😉

Dr. Conspiracy: One of the more humorous examples was what to do with “Martian.” Remember, that race is self-declared by the informant (typically the mother) and there are folks who think they have been impregnated by space aliens and “Martian” really does come up (particularly around New Mexico). Some jurisdictions won’t take “Martian” for an answer, considering it facetious (the exception to the “whatever the parent says” rule). Others, I seem to recall, will take it. That said, it is still necessary to find a code to report to the NCHS.

Expelliarmus: John, I think you are confusing the concept of forgery with fraud.

As I understand it, Scientist is saying that the Hawaii Department of Health cannot possibly forge a document that it issues — because by definition it is authorized to issue the documents.It could, in theory, issue a fraudulent document— that is, let’s say hypothetically someone bribes a DOH employee to enter entirely fake information into the database and then use that to generate & issue a COLB. That would be fraud, not forgery.

Here’s a simple analogy:If I steal your checkbook, write a check to myself for $50, and sign your name to it — that check and the signature is forged.On the other hand, if at a time when you have only $200 in your account, you write out a check for $5000, knowing full well that it won’t be honored by your bank — that check is fraudulent.But it isn’t forged, because you have authority to write and sign your own checks.

I think it comes into play in the birther scenario because you cannot prove fraud through document analysis. If Hawaii indeed issued the COLB & the LFBC, then looking for layers or smiley faces or debating the coding system is irrelevant — if in fact there is some sort of error or anomaly in production or printing, that does not in any way undermine the validity of the document.

On the other hand, fraud would be proven by investigating the facts behind the document production. Given that we know from contemporaneous published birth announcements that a birth record was in fact created for Barack Obama in Hawaii in August of 1961, then any such “fraud” must go back to that time frame. The only way to prove fraud is to come up with affirmative evidence that shows something other than what was reflected in the birth announcements & birth certificate.

Something can seem “not kosher”, yet still be technically legal (regardless of whether it is either an ethical action or good policy). Something can seem “not kosher” and even be potentially illegal, yet still be NOT actionable, because the threshold ability to PROVE intent is simply not there…

So yeah, “not kosher” is way too over-simplistic of a meaningful critera here at all. A lot of what can legitimately be found to fall under “not kosher” would simply result in being something that nothing needs to be (or possibly even can be) done about to change it, regardless of how cr@ppy that result seems or how much people don’t particularly like it…

John Woodman: You’re probably quite right. For most folks, though, I’m not sure the technical distinction is really that important.
The bottom line is: Somethin’ that ain’t kosher.

Dr. Conspiracy: That said, however, I think anyone with a stack of Hawaiian original birth certificates could figure out the codes fairly simply.

To a certain extent, I would certainly agree.

However, that said, I’m not sure it would be entirely transparently easy without the actual codes. Here’s why:

“Hmm… let’s see. All the 1’s say Caucasian. I’ve got a few 2’s that say Negro, and a few 3’s that say Indian. Chinese 4’s, a few Japanese 5’s, Filipino 8’s. No 6’s or 7’s at all. And for 9, I’ve got some Fijians, a couple Samoans, and a Maori.”

Do you see a possible pitfall? Without a key, how does one know whether “2” means Negro or black? And how does one know (for example) whether “9” means “other nonwhite” or possibly “Pacific Islander?”

So while the fact that the code is correct (Other nonwhite) may not be as authenticating as I might have originally supposed, it seems to me that it does still have some additional authenticating value.

I think first we should figure out how uniform the coding
was over the different US-states and whether Hawaii
codes were derived from federal codes at all.
That should be not so difficult ?!
Compare with 1961 BCs from CA,NY , how they were coded.
I noticed that the Hawaiian BC looks much different from the
standard one shown in the 1961 national natality statistics report

and then the records were microfilmed and sent to the fed-stats
and they probably still have the records

———————-
quote:
Not only do they need to insert a certificate into the bound volume, they have to insert a serially numbered certificate, correct as to the month of issue without causing a problem with the certificate that was removed. Further they have to get it into the index and into the 1961 newspapers.

charo: 9 as a code for not stated could be applied to a race qualifier as well as a business industry.

That seems just as likely as the penciled 9 being the code on the form for both race and business industry purely by happenstance.But I am speculating as well.

No it wouldn’t. Two unrelated data items would have their own unrelated coding sets. The requirements for the two data items are completely different. Restricting code sets to numbers made certain programming tasks simpler in the programming languages in use at the time (Assembler mostly, probably, FORTRAN and COBOL were just beginning to gain traction, RPG way have been used), and keeping them to one column made sorting easier. But if the needed to use letters or multiple columns, then they needed to use letters or multiple columns.

It is likely that a business type field would require many more than 10 possibilities. Why would 9 be chosen as unstated instead of ‘Z’ or if there were more than 38 possibilities (0-9, +, -, A-Z, they could use a few other special characters without too much keypunching difficulty too) they may have used two columns and then ’99’ would be a more likely possibility.

You are making assumptions that are entirely unwarranted. There is just no reason on earth why unrelated data items should use the same codes for unstated. The most overriding concept when defining coding sets was to increase speed and reduce the possibility of error at the keypunch. And every card that was punched, was verified, so it was keyed twice, at least.

That is not to say that the number 9 could not have been used to indicate “not stated” in the business field. But if that were so, it would not be because they were using it as a universal answer, it would have been merely coincidence. The fact that the business clearly was stated argues strongly against that. The overwhelmingly likely answer is that ‘9’ means ‘Student’ in that field.

Multiple punches in a column encoded other characters. When you think about it was a 12 bit coding scheme. BCD and ASCII are 7 bits; EBCIDIC is 8 bits. We didn’t truly get beyond 8 bit characters until the general acceptance of Unicode in the late 90’s and we still aren’t really free of it.

The numeric keypad was an optional extra for both the 026 and the 029. The my school in Tucson had an 026 without a numeric pad in 1968, but the school district student ‘Computer Lab’ had one with a numeric keypad.

The U of A Computer Center had go to 029’s for the most part by 1970, but there were a few 026’s scattered around campus. I am pretty sure there were a couple with numeric pads in the Engineering Satellite CC. By ’72 the UA was getting Univac ( I think ) punches and they were just too foreign to my 026/029 habits. Then when the got the DEC System 10, they just about disappeared all the keypunches altogether.

Having said all that from personal memory, I cannot find any external evidence to support me. It is possible that the numeric keypads were third party add-ons. I did find that 029’s were released in 1964 so they could not have been used for Obama’s data in 1961.

Scientist: The truly convincing argument to me (besides that I don’t generally believe in conspiracies) is that the probability of a birth in Hawaii is so likely

Okay, I’ve got to bring out what you are missing. The information about the father is what is being alleged as false (by some). As in it was missing. As in her husband was a cad and didn’t show up for the birth (the fact that he was a cad is pretty much confirmed now) so he was left off? Maybe it was put in later? Who knows? None of this has to do with eligibility and in the past, the owner of the site would not allow that discussion because he considered it a smear. It does have to do with vetting. Vetting is ugly business. You claimed in the past to be for it. Didn’t the whole issue begin with wanting to know the actual name of Obama? How else could you know that except by the birth certificate? Having to show a birth certificate was not required of any other President! Shameful you say? A lot of things never used to be required for people in general. They are now. Just make everything consistent. There was a time when people here said he had to have shown his birth certificate to an official for the election. We know now that never happened, but I remember clearly being hammered for the idea that there was no proof that Obama showed his birth certificate to any official for the election process. Just hammered left and right. Anyhoo…

To whoever above who said he didn’t even remember my issue, well it started out as

1) maybe the Code manual for 1961 does have 9 as unstated- we can only speculate which is what has been going on endlessly. A copy of the manual will show the facts. I am not claiming that I am right.

2) There would have had to have been a Code for not stated, IMO. I think the owner of the site presumes an x was used if the father was not stated. We don’t know that for certain. I do know that another website has the footnote of a page that mentions the use of unstated. I can’t cut and paste it. It states something to the effect that in “the annual volume” this “not stated” category is not shown to save space, but discusses that subtraction of the numbers can lead you the unstated number.

John: The $100 bill may not have been the best analogy. Clearly, Hawaii is not authorized to create birth certificates out of whole cloth (though it probably would be fraud, not forgery). But fundamentally, the entire matter comes down to this: either there is an enormous, all-encompasing conspiracy (which is the subject here) or there isn’t.

The CCP seems to be implying that someone in the White House basement or the Obama campaign headquarters threw together a computer document. But we know that Hawaii has verified every single piece of information on the document (see their letter to Arizona Sec of State Bennett). That means either the information on the document IS correct or Hawaii is in on the conspiracy.

So. let’s look at those 2 scenarios: If the information is correct, why fabricate a birth certificate rather than simply ordering one? That is simply ludicrous. If the information is incorrect, but Hawaii is part of a mammoth conspiracy, then why wouldn’t Hawaii, who would have the materials and knowledge to do so produce the phony document or at least check it out before it was released to make sure it was an impeccable fake?

As for the coding tables, I don’t know whether the DOH would have kept ones from 1961, but they would know that they existed. Doc got one, so, of course, they could get one too. If there was a huge conspiracy, the President would ensure that HHS provided everything that Hawaii would need, wouldn’t he? You see, John, once you go down the rabbit hole, anything is possible, which is why I stay above ground.

And again, I keep coming back to the simple normality of a mother who lives in Hawaii giving birth there and the ludicrousness of the counter-theories. On the other hand, theories that have Mitt Romney born in Canada are much more tenable. After all, it was only a few minutes away, there were minimal formalities to cross the border in that era, Canada has and had first-rate medical facilities (unlike Kenya) and the Romney family owned a house there and still does. Maybe, in the interests of fairness, you would like to analyze Mitt’s certifiicate?

O/T here but scientist, I would have a hard time believing you would not love this aspect of Arpaio:

Sheriff Joe is best known for his tough stand against illegal immigrants, but he is also tough on those who abuse and neglect animals. Several years ago, Sheriff Joe created the A.C.E. (Animal Cruelty Enforcement) Posse and recently created the M.P.C.A. (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) Posse.

The M.P.C.A. “will focus on promoting adoptions for the animals still in his care and providing education and resources for the lucky animals that have found new, loving homes, aiding cruelty investigators, checking on pet shops and puppy mills.”
…
The shelter is located at First Avenue and Madison Street in Phoenix, Arizona. This is the location of a jail that was closed to human inmates in 1999 because of plumbing issues, but makes a perfect home for abused and neglected animals. The shelter is air-conditioned and the cells have been reconditioned to be comfortable for the animals who live there. Detention officers and female inmates care for the animals.

One current resident of the M.A.S.H. Unit is a shih tzu who arrived at the groomer on a 110+ degree day in August in the trunk of a car. The groomer was worried about the dog, who, according to the police report, was soaking wet and dehydrated. The groomer took the shih tzu to a nearby vet. The vet’s report states that the dog had a 103 degree temperature, distressed breathing, and was suffering heat stress and dehydration. On January 18, 2011, Katie Truong was arrested by Maricopa County Sheriff’s Animal Cruelty detectives, and the shih tzu is being held as evidence against her.

charo: The information about the father is what is being alleged as false (by some). As in it was missing. As in her husband was a cad and didn’t show up for the birth (the fact that he was a cad is pretty much confirmed now) so he was left off? Maybe it was put in later? Who knows?

I’m trying to figure why that would indicate fraud. Suppose he wasn’t there at the birth, but Ms Dunham supplied his information. They were married, after all. What do the wives/partners of those serving in Afghanistan do if they give birth? I’m sure they provide the information for the father. I don’t know if Obama Sr said African, or Ms Dunham said African or they refused to say and someone saw a birthplace in Africa and decided to put African. None of those indicate fraud (or argue against it).

charo: It does have to do with vetting. Vetting is ugly business. You claimed in the past to be for it.

I’m not sure I ever said such a thing, but. there is vetting and there is vetting. If we must know everything about a President, does that include them posting their conjugal relations on YouTube so people can approve or disapprove of their choice of positions? Presidential paternal cadiness (is that a word) really ought not to be a disqualifier, I hope. Just in recent times, you would have lost Reagan, Clinton, Ford and possibly Kennedy on those grounds. Anyway, Obama-unfortunately and unnecessarily in my opinion, since the “controversy” over his name was confined to a few web sites and I’ll bet 99% of the voters never even heard about the release of the COLB in June 2008-released his birth certificate, so it may be that will now be a requirement for all in the future. Certainly Romney decided to release that piece of detritus b.c, with “VOID” marked right on it.

There is one thing that all serious candidates in the last 40 years have released, though-10 years or so of tax returns. Of course, no law requires it, but it’s become standard operating procedure. And I can see the value in that. For all the talk of natural born citizen and allegiance, in my experience, most people are far more influenced by their bank accounts than by what passport their dad held or what patch of soil they spent the first few days of life on. So, candidates’ financial interests are of indisputable importance.

Scientist: Suppose he wasn’t there at the birth, but Ms Dunham supplied his information.

I want to say more on this, but I have to watch what I say on this site due to retribution. I’ll just leave it at that (and I don’t mean comments by others who sometimes go over the top). Maybe a manual will pop up to explain the 9 codes.

Vetting of the narrative someone has told about his/her life, not conjugal stuff, is more to the point. As for the NBC issue, there are people here, Obots if you will, who believe that being a NBC is the law, and the law needs followed. They believe it was in the case of Obama.

So, do you think Sheriff Joe would arrest Romney if he drives through Arizona with a dog on the roof?

charo: O/T here but scientist, I would have a hard time believing you would not love this aspect of Arpaio:

So Arpaio enforces animal cruelty laws, just as every other law enforcement organnization in the country does. New York has some of the toughest animal cruelty laws around and our local police and State Police bust people almost every single day. And they do all that without feeling a need to birf.

I am a casual reader who can contribute nothing to the technical discussion about coding, but I do have some expertise relating to the use of “African” as the identifier for Obama (Sr.)’s race. I was a graduate student and researcher at the universities in Uganda (Makerere) and Nairobi in the during the period 1965-68. My research focused onI interviewing the Kenyan students who had participated in the 1959 Mboya Airlift. These would have been contemporaries of Obama Sr.

I can say with complete confidence that Obama Sr. would have identified his race as “African” As Doc C and others have noted, “African” was the commonly used race identifier that British colonial officials would have assigned and that would have been applied to Obama (Sr.) throughout his education in primary and secondary school. Moreover, Obama (Sr.) and his contemporaries embraced that definition of race as a positive cultural and political identification, in contrast to some tribal identifican such as Luo or Kikuyu. So if Obama (Sr.) or any of the Kenyan students who came to the United States to study was asked for the identify of their race, the answer would have been a proud “African.” They would never have answered “Negro” because that was not an identifier they had grown up with, nor was it an identifier that would resonate with their political and cultural aspirations.

When I first saw the long form birth certifate identified Obama (Sr.)’s race as “African”, it added verification that it was genuine. I read much of the birthers that the use of “African” proved that the document was a forgery because the correct identifier would have been “Negro”. They were completely wrong about how Obama (Sr.) would have responded to the question. Kenyans studying in the South would have also answered with “African” but it is likely that officials would have entered “Negro” rather than using the self-identifier of “African”, but it seems that was not the case in Hawaii.

I had many joking discussions with my African friends about my racial identify in Uganda and Kenya. I insisted that I was not “European”, because I was “American”. They said I was a “European” of the “American” tribe. I would never self-describe as “European”, but I had no control over the assignment of “European” as my race by officials. Kenyan students would also have had to live with the coding that Amercian officials applied.

None of the “racial” categories that appeared on the 1962 Kenyan census form are to be found on the 1961 or 1968 American racial codes that Doc C has shown. (Well, the term “Indian” appears on the Kenyan and American lists, but that term applies to totally different groups, perpetuating the confusion that goes back to Columbus.) Racial categories are specific to political context, and there are always problems in translating racial identify from one context to another. In the Hawaiian context, they allowed “African” to be used on the birth certificate, but that pushed the identification problem to the coding-for-statistical-collection exercise. Which was done appropriately, as the discussion on this thread has established—the protests of birthers not withstanding.

Birthers also argued that Obama (Sr.)’s place of birth shown on the LFBC as “Kenya, East Africa” was evidence of a forgery. To me, the identifier “Kenya, East Africa” confirmed the authenticity of the document. In the late 50’s and early 60’s, there were many government services that were East Africa wide, such as a common morket, currency, railroad, and nascent university system. It was not at all certain that the political entity that would become independent from Britain was Kenya. In 1961 Obama (Sr,) was hedging his bets as to what entity would eventually become the state in which he would become a leader. From what I have read, his inclination was for a larger political unit, but his inclination was not shared by all of the Kenyan students who came to the U.S., and they may have only said they came from Kenya.

Dr. Conspiracy:
What’s funny is that as someone who has developed specifications for automated systems to do just this kind of coding, I have sat in meetings with vital statistics officials and had similar discussions. They develop policies to deal with the question.

One of the more humorous examples was what to do with “Martian.” Remember, that race is self-declared by the informant (typically the mother) and there are folks who think they have been impregnated by space aliens and “Martian” really does come up (particularly around New Mexico). Some jurisdictions won’t take “Martian” for an answer, considering it facetious (the exception to the “whatever the parent says” rule). Others, I seem to recall, will take it. That said, it is still necessary to find a code to report to the NCHS.

That was a long time ago, when things were simpler. The birth certificate race code table TODAY is 31 pages long!

Thank you for taking the time to share what you know from personal experience of the time.

American Mzungu: I am a casual reader who can contribute nothing to the technical discussion about coding, but I do have some expertise relating to the use of “African” as the identifier for Obama (Sr.)’s race.

You need not speculate. Ann Dunham signed the certificate and she is the one who attested to the information on it. The father’s race is supposed to be what the father considers himself to be. Whether she said “African” on behalf of Sr. or Obama Sr. said “African” himself, it was Dunham who filled out the form and signed it. It wasn’t filled in later.

Scientist: I’m trying to figure why that would indicate fraud. Suppose he wasn’t there at the birth, but Ms Dunham supplied his information.

Dr. Conspiracy: You need not speculate. Ann Dunham signed the certificate and she is the one who attested to the information on it. The father’s race is supposed to be what the father considers himself to be. Whether she said “African” on behalf of Sr. or Obama Sr. said “African” himself, it was Dunham who filled out the form and signed it. It wasn’t filled in later.

Absolutely. It does not matter who said “African”, whether it was Obama Sr or Ms Dunham based on her knowledge of how he normally described himself. charo seems to believe it is monumentally important, but doesn’t say why. Nor is African at all odd for someone from Africa, any more than Chinese would be odd for someone from China or Japanese for someone from Japan.

Scientist: Nor is African at all odd for someone from Africa, any more than Chinese would be odd for someone from China or Japanese for someone from Japan.

In my long post above, I tried to make the point that we should expect Obama (Sr.) to use “African” as his racial identifier, and we would need to find some explantion if some other identifier appeared on the birth certificate. He must have communicated this information to his wife in such a convincing fashion that she supplied it when filling out the form.

1) 782 = other races, Alaska, male
Includes 126 births to Aleuts and 612 births to Eskimos.
(In addition, there were 38 births to Aleuts and Eskimos residing
in other States.)

2) 684 = other races, Alaska, female
Included 132 births to Aleuts and 514 births to Eskimos.
(In addition, there vere 38 births to Aleuts and Eskimos residing
in other States.)

3) 3,762 = other races, Hawaii, male
Includes 2,498 births to Hawaiians and Part-Hawaiians.
(In addition, there were 336 births to Hawaiians and Part-Hawaiians
residing in other States.)

4) 3,574 = other races, Hawaii, female
Includes 2,424 births to Hawaiians and Part-Hawaiians.
(In addition, there were 336 births to Hawaiians and Part-Hawaiians
residing in other States.)

5) Minnesota
An eatimated 100 births for this State were erraneously
classified as white instead of Indian.

——————————–

This is based on a 50% sample
Hawaiians and Part-Hawaiians are lumped into the same category here,
although the manual has them separated.
However, death certificates for 1961 which have the same 11 categories
show zero entries for Hawaiian – apparently they were all collected
under Part-Hawaiian.
We still have no Filipino births reported in some 1961 statistics ?

American Mzungu: I am a casual reader who can contribute nothing to the technical discussion about coding, but I do have some expertise relating to the use of “African” as the identifier for Obama (Sr.)’s race.

John Woodman: The scenario of Stanley Ann Dunham Obama having flown to Kenya to have her child alone in a foreign country IS — once you understand what that would have entailed — ludicrously ridiculous. And yes, I did write a satirical piece — the only one I think I’ve written on Obama matters, by the way — lampooning that scenario

Mr. Woodman, I’m sorry to be so late reading your satirical piece. I could have helped you create some wild narrative during Ann’s stay in Kenya, based on my trip from Kampala to Mombasa in 1965 and my experience with hospitals during that period.

The problem is, I asked a simple question, and no one even tries to answer. Some people do offer insults, though. This means you guys dont know.

The 9’s mean (1961) “other, non white” the heading for that column in the manual is : “race of child”

the two questions on the BC are : “race of father” for which the answer is other non white.

the second question, business of father, is answered the same way- “other non white”.

So- how did this happen? Are you trying to say that the second 9 does not mean “other nonwhite” and if you are, then explain this.

I’m trying to break the question down so you guys can understand it and thus give it a shot-

Do you remember the Sherlock Holmes story where the dog is outside and should have been barking but wasn’t? Well, this is what we seem to have here…Its not my fault no one here can understand my statements. If you went to school in Russia like I did then maybe you would understand. It is well know how weak the American educational system has become.

American Mzungu: Mr. Woodman, I’m sorry to be so late reading your satirical piece. I could have helped you create some wild narrative during Ann’s stay in Kenya, based on my trip from Kampala to Mombasa in 1965 and my experience with hospitals during that period.

Since you travelled from the US to East Africa in the 1960s, it would be interesting to hear how many flights it took and how long and what the airfare was. As far as I know, there are no direct flights from the US to Kenya even today and getting there requires going through Europe or South Africa or the Middle East.

Look- I began this in a friendly manner. All i got back was false accusations, anger, stupid insults, etc. If you cannot conduct yourselves here in a civilized rational manner, then you probably don’t belong here. If, now, I seem harsh, it is because of the solid wall of buffoonery and libel here that I encounter.

Any reasonable person should be able to see that if the second question and the second 9 is totally screwed up, then this is a defective document.

Dave: Look- I began this in a friendly manner. All i got back was false accusations, anger, stupid insults, etc. If you cannot conduct yourselves here in a civilized rational manner, then you probably don’t belong here. If, now, I seem harsh, it is because of the solid wall of buffoonery and libel here that I encounter.

Dave: The problem is, I asked a simple question, and no one even tries to answer. Some people do offer insults, though. This means you guys dont know. The 9′s mean (1961) “other, non white” the heading for that column in the manual is : “race of child”the two questions on the BC are : “race of father” for which the answer is other non white.the second question, business of father, is answered the same way- “other non white”. So- how did this happen? Are you trying to say that the second 9 does not mean “other nonwhite” and if you are, then explain this. I’m trying to break the question down so you guys can understand it and thus give it a shot-

“white” is not a business.
You mean “other business” ?
This would be a state-coding nothing similar in the fed-coding.
It could well be, that “9” here means “other”, we don’t know.
How likely ? That would be interesting. Examine other BCs …

Yep, I messed up; sorry. I even thought of that as I was writing, but I think I discounted it because “blank” hadn’t been mentioned in any of the codes sets, that I recall.

Before EBCDIC was BCD and ASCII.

ASCII wasn’t released until 1963. A year before EBCDIC, but still after the time in question.

Multiple punches in a column encoded other characters. When you think about it was a 12 bit coding scheme.

But you couldn’t use the full 12 bits, for fear of creating “lace cards.” I’m going to guess that IBM explicitly designed EBCDIC to avoid more than a few (3?) punches per column, which in turn is what creates its signature funkiness.

Never thought about that before; I’ll have to cut IBM a little slack there. They still don’t get a pass for Token Ring.

BCD and ASCII are 7 bits; EBCIDIC is 8 bits. We didn’t truly get beyond 8 bit characters until the general acceptance of Unicode in the late 90′s and we still aren’t really free of it.

…and going back to our earlier conversation: don’t forget CDC display code! Originally 6 bits, so you could pack 10 characters into a 60-bit word, but gee, sorry, no lowercase letters. Eventually extended to 12 bits (well, really 7 bits encoded in 6 or 12 bits — but you probably know the story), giving you full-metal ASCII.

Dave: the second question, business of father, is answered the same way- “other non white”

Politely. Good sirrah, prithee that you heed our words. The code set of which you speak for “business of father” is most unlikely to be that which is used for “race of father”, as there are very few businesses outside of the conveyance of comestibles for which, I might proffer as an example, “Indian” would be a rational answer.

Marry, it must be considered as a possibility, that a different code set would be used for this field. The good Doctor Conspiracy, proprietor of this estimable site, has already laid out before us examples of different code sets that would be used for different fields.

Romney’s is invalid. It says “VOID” right on it. The birthers have conveniently ignored this, so i will ask Dave directly,

Dave: Is Romney’s certificate valid? You, a rank newbie who showed up here a few days ago believe you are owed answers. I have been here for years so that should be doubly true for me. So please answer.

Scientist: Since you travelled from the US to East Africa in the 1960s, it would be interesting to hear how many flights it took and how long and what the airfare was.As far as I know, there are no direct flights from the US to Kenya even today and getting there requires going through Europe or South Africa or the Middle East.

My satirical piece was inspired by finding two items of information:

1) information on the enormous cost of such a flight in 1961 — around 6 months’ salary even for an American, so the level of sponsorship an African had to have from the West even to get out of the country was typically VERY large, and

2) the flight schedules for BOAC, the precursor to British Airways, which would almost certainly have been the airline taken, and which is known to have been used by Obama Sr.

I didn’t know at the time I started my satirical piece that Kogelo is about 200 miles of apparently still dirt road away from Mombasa, and takes 6 hours to travel, even if you have your own car — which few African villagers do — even TODAY.

In any event, it would definitely be interesting to hear of PERSONAL experience of making this trip.

Dave: the second question, business of father, is answered the same way- “other non white”.

So- how did this happen? Are you trying to say that the second 9 does not mean “other nonwhite” and if you are, then explain this.

the numbers have different meanings for different contexts. If the answer to question 1 who is our president is b. President Obama. And the answer to question 10 is where was he born b. Hawaii does the answer b mean that he was born in President Obama?

justlw: Politely.Good sirrah, prithee that you heed our words. The code set of which you speak for “business of father” is most unlikely to be that which is used for “race of father”, as there are very few businesses outside of the conveyance of comestibles for which, I might proffer as an example, “Indian” would be a rational answer.

Marry, it must be considered as a possibility, that a different code set would be used for this field.The good Doctor Conspiracy, proprietor of this estimable site, has already laid out before us examples of different code sets that would be used for different fields.

I hope this finds you in good health.

Yrs truly,
lw

Heh. Thanks for that!

Why would a code 9 have to remain static between fields as “other non-white” while a code 1 (just from a quick glance at the Nordyke and Obama BCs) would be able to magically alternate between “male”, “caucasian”, “private practice”, or “yes”?

Dave:
The problem is, I asked a simple question, and no one even tries to answer. Some people do offer insults, though.This means you guys dont know.

The 9′s mean (1961) “other, non white” the heading for that column in the manualis : “race of child”

the two questions on the BC are : “race of father” for which the answer is other non white.

the second question, business of father, is answered the same way- “other non white”.

So- how did this happen? Are you trying to say that the second 9 does not mean “other nonwhite” and if you are, then explain this.

I’m trying to break the question down so you guys can understand it and thus give it a shot-

OK, try this. The whole reason for using numbers is so you can have different values for different questions. It makes no sense to have numbers always mean the same thing if the answers don’t.

These were Profession categories from the US 1960 Census categories. I added numbers to them, added none, not stated, and other. We don’t know what the Hawaiian codes really were, this is just to illustrate the point. I’ll call these the codes for Year W4.

Month of birth: (from the Tape file layout)
1 — January
2 — February
3 — March
4 — April
5 — May
6 — June
7 — July
8 — August
9 — September
0 — October
X — November
V — December

So looking at these 4 fields, 9 doesn’t mean “other”, or “not stated”, or November, or “Other Nonwhite.” You must have a field number and a year to know what the number means.

“3” has no meaning. Field 5A Month 1961 — 3 means March. Field 12a YearW4 — 3 means Clerical. Field 12b YearW4 — 3 means Manufacturing. Field 9 YearW4 — 3 means Indian (since the only way to get race of child = Indian is to have an Indian mother and father, on an indian mother and an unknown father). A 3 in any other field than a race field doesn’t mean “Indian.” Same with any other number.

John Woodman: In any event, it would definitely be interesting to hear of PERSONAL experience of making this trip.

I’d love to tell some tales.

You are correct that air travel between the U.S. and Kenya was very expensive back in the early 60’s. That is the reason Tom Mboya organized a charter plane to take Kenyans who had gotten accepted at U.S. colleges/universities and arranged for scholarships/local funding, but still lacked transportation to the U.S. I was lucky to get sponsorship for my flight rather than paying it out of my own pocket.

It is more likely that Ann would have gotten off at Entebbe Airport in Uganda than flying to Nairobi, since it would have been cheaper and the travel distance to Kogelo was about the same. Mama Sarah would not have met her at the airport. She would have delegated that task to a kinsman who would have lived in/near Kampala or Nairobi who was familiar with making arrangements for a visitor.

You are also correct about the difficulty of land travel in the early 60’s, especially to a village in the provinces. You had Ann traveling to Kogelo by bus. . The main roads connecting Kisumu to Nairobi or Kampala were dirt roads. I took a bus on one of the main roads. Masaii spears rattling back and forth in the aisle as the bus dodged pot holes.. A woman handing me a chicken to hold while she got out something or other. Memorable stuff. I doubt that a bus would have run to Kogelo back in 1961. If not, it would have required riding a bicycle, arranging for a high clearance vehicle like a Landrover, or walking.

There would have been a huge party for Ann when she arrived in Kogelo. A two or three day blast. The kith and kin would have gathered for the event. At least a goat and more likely a cow would have been slaughtered. Much beer (both local and bottled). Music and dancing. (Based on my reception by the family of a Kenyan student I had arranged to study in the U.S. It was a also in the western part of Kenya, about as far off the main road as Kogelo.)

The birther lore has Ann traveling to Mombasa to catch a boat back home because the airlines wouldn’t let her get on the plane in her advanced pregnant condition. That’s about 500 miles, a two day trip by car. Elephants on the road in Tsavo. Dust. The birthers have Mama Sarah present when Ann gave birth, so she must have accompanied Ann. Instead of car, they would have probably taken the East African railroad from Kisumu to Nairobi, and then to Mombasa. Not cheap, and this would have been an added expense. The cost of passage on a ship would also have been unbudgeted (requiring a telegram to Honolulu asking for more money, or asking Moma Sarah’s family to cough up the fare.)

So, according to birther lore, there’s a birth certificate on record at the Coast hospital. They speculate baby dropped out unexpectedly when Ann was taking a dip in the ocean. I hope she was trying to do some snorkeling along the world-class reef with unbelievable marine life. It’s a good thing that Obama (Jr.) came out while she was near a hospital because if she got on the boat, he would have been born at sea. Taking care of a newborn on an ocean voyage? I would have advised her to have the baby in the clinic in Kisumu, or at least stay in Nairobi to use the Aga Khan Hospital. Mulago Hospital in Kampala would also have been a good choice. I hope she never developed malaria like I did

This would have been the trip of a lifetime for a 17 year old. She would have had stories! So would Mama Sarah and family. (Moma Sarah and family would also have had debts to pay for their hospitality.) I had lots of stories to pass on to my family. My sons have heard them all and can tell them as well as I. Strangely, Obama never writes about the stories his mother should have told him. Mama Sara and family never tell stories about the visit from Ann. I can only conclude that something so horrific happened that everyone took an oath never to talk about these events again, and they all kept their word.

(By the way, the little girl throwing up on the bus in the seat behind her came directly from my own personal experience during a many-hours-long bus journey winding through mountains of *North* Africa, which is a much different world but in some ways similar, back in 1984.)

Things I got wrong:

* Entebbe, not Nairobi.
* Bus probably not going to Kogelo. Hey, I was optimistic.
* No huge party on Ann’s arrival.
* No elephants.
* No train.
* No boat.
* No mention of big debt incurred by Obama’s family.
* No mention of tales told for years by both families.
* A complete and quite unfortunate lack of rattling Masai spears on the bus.

Thanks for the great stories American Mzungu. Personally, when my wife was in the latter stages of pregnancy I couldn’t get her to go 50 miles away for the weekend. I can only imagine the reaction if I had suggested a jaunt to Kenya. The other thing is that in-laws just aren’t that interested in seeing the swollen belly; they want to see the grandkid. So, if you were making a jaunt halfway round the world to visit in-laws, you would (A) do it after the baby was born (kids under 1 year travel free anyway) and (B) travel with their son rather than going by your lonesome. I have certainlly never visited my in-laws without my wife, nor has she visited my folks without me.

The peanut gallery is really boisterous today. But I did get a partial answer, I think- for business of father, the 9 is lifted from another code book, so its correct. Hmm. Now that is something to chew on…

And what is this business about Glen Beck doing those deeds? what is this, explain, it sounds kookoo.

Scientist: Personally, when my wife was in the latter stages of pregnancy I couldn’t get her to go 50 miles away for the weekend. I can only imagine the reaction if I had suggested a jaunt to Kenya.

My daughter-in-law (and son) just had a baby. She was on bed-rest for the last three weeks. She’s a fitness freak.

From all accounts, Stanley Ann was a remarkable woman, but any reasonable scenario of a trip to Kenya in the late stages of pregnancy, giving birth there, and immediately traveling back to Hawaii would require physical and mental–not to mention financial–resources of which legends are made. .

Is there a mother who could refrain from saying, “Son, after everything I went through to give birth to you in Africa….is it too much to ask that you clean up your room?”

i don’t know if you have heard of BBC historian Peter Firstbrook, read his book “The Obamas” or listened to his c-span interview by Dinesh D’Souza – firstbrook went to kenya and explored 27 generations of President Obama’s Kenyan ancestors

an interesting footnote, most of his family are/were 7th day adventists

American Mzungu: My daughter-in-law (and son) just had a baby. She was on bed-rest for the last three weeks. She’s a fitness freak.From all accounts, Stanley Ann was a remarkable woman, but any reasonable scenario of a trip to Kenya in the late stages of pregnancy, giving birth there, and immediately traveling back to Hawaii would require physical and mental–not to mention financial–resources of which legends are made. .Is there a mother who could refrain from saying, “Son, after everything I went through to give birth to you in Africa….is it too much to ask that you clean up your room?”

Plus, I can’t believe she’d go all the way to Africa and back and not even get the t-shirt.

American Mzungu: From all accounts, Stanley Ann was a remarkable woman, but any reasonable scenario of a trip to Kenya in the late stages of pregnancy, giving birth there, and immediately traveling back to Hawaii would require physical and mental–not to mention financial–resources of which legends are made.

When she lived in Indonesia, she had her baby in Indonesia, though a trip back to Hawaii would have been far more do-able than going to Kenya in 1961 (her husband was relativelly well-off and there might even have been a direct flight from Jakarta to Honolulu). As adventurous as she was, she seemed, oddly enough, to have her babies where she was living when they were born.

American Mzungu: Is there a mother who could refrain from saying, “Son, after everything I went through to give birth to you in Africa….is it too much to ask that you clean up your room?”

justlw: By most accounts, they probably wouldn’t be that happy about seeing Barack’s new American wife at all.
So far, only CDR has had the cojones to suggest she was sent there, by herself, by her angry parents to punish her for getting pregnant. And that’s one of the best theories they’ve put forth.

Yeah, the best story I’ve heard is that they were so ashamed she had a baby with an African that they sent her away. Among the many problems with this theory are: (1) She had already married the African; (2) There is no evidence they were ashamed at all, since they spent a good part of their lives raising that boy; (3) If they would send her anywhere or she would run anywhere, it would have been to Seattle where all her school friends were. Having raised a daughter, I know that when 17 year old girls have a problem with parents, they do NOT turn to a husband or boyfriend’s parents, they turn to their girlfriends, In fact, Seattle was where she went a few months later.

So, which of the 2 guys with “screwed up birth certificates” do you prefer? I sense you are a Ron Paul supporter, but I don’t recall seeing his birth certificate at all. Funny how all the birthers who claim to support him don’t care. Of course, as old as he is, I don’t know that he even has one-they only came into general use in the late 19th century,

GLaB: Plus, I can’t believe she’d go all the way to Africa and back and not even get the t-shirt.

She would have brought back a dashiki for her Dad, an ivory bracelet for her Mom–as tokens of appreciation for all the monetary sacrifices they made for her. And an elephant hair bracelet for her African husband; she would have made up symbolism.

Dave:
The peanut gallery is really boisterous today. But I did get a partial answer, I think- for business of father, the 9 is lifted from another code book, so its correct. Hmm.Now that is something to chew on…

And what is this business about Glen Beck doing those deeds? what is this, explain, it sounds kookoo.

Dave, you need to learn to research things — thoroughly — for yourself.

Dave: Well, well, doctor, the poster called NBC is claiming to know more than you…..in context, 9 means XXXx, well, its nice to be so self assured and comfortable with a XXXX . this being the certitude of knowledge.,

I am merely pointing out that these codes have a coding table which explains their meaning. Have you looked at the actual 1961 and 1968 document? 9′ means ‘other non-white’ in context of race but has different meanings in other contexts. The context is given by the location in the data file.

It’s so trivially simple. You seem to be confused that ‘9’ always means ‘other non-white’ which is plainly ridiculous.

So while you are trying to educate yourself, you should stop projecting your ignorance onto others.

So explain to us, if in 1961 ‘9’ mean ‘other non-white’ for race (of the child) and in 1964 three codes were removed, 6 and 7 for Aleut and Eskimo (combined with Native Indians) and 10 and 11 were combined (Hawaiian and Partial Hawaiian) and then moved to position 6 while position 7 became ‘other non-white’ and a new code ‘unknown or not stated’ was added with value 9, and this value applied to race of father, mother and child, how come that you continue to believe the Posse who showed an erroneous reference from a 1968 manual, claimed to have the 1961 manual but are unable to present it for inspection and are now pointing fingers to eachother while coming up with a new ‘story’ that they had the codes ‘confirmed’.

Why are they so unable to present their story in a consistent and factual manner?

Does that not worry you?

Then again, who am I kidding here… Truth is of no interest to you now is it?

In the federal codes, there is no “X” in the table because the race of the child is ALWAYS present (it’s derived). For Hawaiian purposes the “X” seems likely since there are “X” values penciled at other points on the form.

The Video says that the penciled codes ALWAYS correspond to values in their faux table. That is not the case. There are “X” values printed on the form that do not appear in the Cold Case Posse code table.

nbc: It is likely that the remaining value ‘X’ or blank would represent “not stated’ as this is the standard for other not stated examples where all the digits are being used.

I know you want to set the record straight, and so do I. All Glenn Beck has to do is release his criminal record abstract stamped “Subject has clear record to date,” and this can be over tonight – because this is no laughing matter.

One of you guys did say that the other 9 is derived from some other code book. You guys also say that in the 61 manual, there is a column where 9 is accurate for the first question, and there is another column where the use of a 9 is also accurate,… the one 9 means one thing, while the second 9 means something else. OK.
Is the other column (the occupation one) – where exactly is that in the 1961 code, before or after the race of child section?

I’m not a Ron Paul supporter, since I do not subscribe to Austrian economics and most Libertarianism ( they totally omit the Judeo-interest rate factor, etc.)… I am a disciple of Alexander Dugin and Alain de Benoist.

I hope you are in jest about the Beck stuff, everyone knows he didn’t do those things, that got started by Gilbert Godfrey the comedian or something like that. But its true that Laura Bush did kill a close friend of hers in a bizarre auto accident when she was young, and I think the Bush’s kept a miscarriage or aborted fetus in a jar in their home for a spell…

Dave:
One of you guys did say that the other 9 is derived from some other code book. You guys also say that in the 61 manual,there is a columnwhere 9 is accurate for the first question, and there is another column where the use of a 9 is also accurate,… the one 9 means one thing, while the second 9 means something else. OK.Is the other column (the occupation one) – where exactly is that in the 1961 code, before or after the race of child section?

I’m not a Ron Paul supporter, since I do not subscribe to Austrian economics and most Libertarianism ( they totally omit the Judeo-interest rate factor, etc.)… I am a disciple of Alexander Dugin and Alain de Benoist.

I hope you are in jest about the Beck stuff, everyone knows he didn’t do those things, that got started by Gilbert Godfrey the comedian or something like that. But its true that Laura Bush did kill a close friend of hers in a bizarre auto accident when she was young, and I think the Bush’s kept a miscarriage or aborted fetus in a jar in their home for a spell…

I would encourage you to read the specifications for yourself — carefully.

They are referenced in the article above, and probably in the course of the comments as well.

Go to the original source materials.

Here’s a formula for not being a patsy. For not being a “useful idiot” (again, if you don’t understand the origin of that term, look it up):

1. Be ready to accept truths you don’t like.
2. Be ready to identify people not telling the truth, even if they’re “on your side.”
3. Read everything you can on both sides of an issue.
4. Check the original sources.
5. Test the reasoning. Learn what’s a fallacy, and what isn’t. Become acquainted with straw men, ad hominem attacks, and other common fallacies.
6. Learn to accurately evaluate what is likely and what is not.
7. Test your own beliefs, and be ready to modify them or throw them out the window if you find out they’re not accurate.
8. See Rules #1 and 2.

People who join a side simply because they like the result or think they like the company — not because it’s factually true — end up birthers. They end up being the tools of others, who are feeding them false information for their own purposes.

Dave: One of you guys did say that the other 9 is derived from some other code book. You guys also say that in the 61 manual, there is a column where 9 is accurate for the first question, and there is another column where the sue of a 9 is also accurate, and the one 9 means one thing, while the second 9 means something else. OK. Is the other column (the occupation one) – where exactly is that in the 1961 code, before or after the race of child section?

I said that in addition to direct codes, there are derived codes which are calculated by the computer from the direct data. As to the ‘9’ meaning one thing in context of one data point and another in context of another, is something I already have shown.

‘9’ can mean September for the month
‘9’ can mean ‘other none-white’ for race of the child
‘9; can mean all other places *rural” for population size
‘9’ can refer to ounces of weight at birth

The 1961 manual is linked by Dr C, have you taken a look at it? What part is still confusing you?

OK. Is the other column (the occupation one) – where exactly is that in the 1961 code, before or after the race of child section?

There is no such entry in the 1961 and 1968 (iirc) data files that represent occupation. Others have shown how the Census does provide codes for occupation but it is far from clear that the census uses the same codes as the NCHS, especially given that they used different codes for ‘race’ for example.

In the end, you need to have the code book for the data to understand its meaning. Looking at a 1968, pretending that it is a 1961 document and then making claims about the meaning of ‘9’ is somewhat inappropriate, although others may call it misleading. If the CCP cannot produce their own 1961 manual then stronger accusations may be warranted.

So far, the CCP seems to be all over themselves trying to distance themselves from their own follies.

Fascinating… And quite hilarious… Such fumbling is what we have come to expect from those who claim themselves to be birthers. It’s often caused by an innate inability to consider data which conflicts with one’s beliefs.

Woodman and Dr C for example have shown themselves to be able to look at conflicting data, and find appropriate explanations. But the birthers so far have quickly jumped to myths which they later refused to retract.

It’s this kind of shoddy research scientific AND legal which is one of the main reasons the birther movement has been so ineffective.

John Woodman: 1. Be ready to accept truths you don’t like.
2. Be ready to identify people not telling the truth, even if they’re “on your side.”
3. Read everything you can on both sides of an issue.
4. Check the original sources.
5. Test the reasoning. Learn what’s a fallacy, and what isn’t. Become acquainted with straw men, ad hominem attacks, and other common fallacies.
6. Learn to accurately evaluate what is likely and what is not.
7. Test your own beliefs, and be ready to modify them or throw them out the window if you find out they’re not accurate.
8. See Rules #1 and 2.

Yes, that is how research should be done but the problem is that the mind of many is constrained genetically to reject ambiguity and embrace authority. It’s quite a curse, especially if one is not aware of this.

You have to be willing to tolerate a certain amount of uncertainty, until you’re certain.

Unfortunately, being legitimately certain often takes more learning about an issue than most folks are willing to do.

The shortcut is: Find an “authority” you like and trust, and believe whatever he or she says.

The problem with that is there are “authorities” who a) don’t actually know themselves, they’re just posing as if they do; and b) some are actually willing to actively mislead you, and are very skilled at presenting themselves as benevolent, confident “leaders.”

Clue: If someone totally only presents one side of an issue, that’s a red flag.

Clue 2: If you find that someone has told you something that quite definitely turns out not to be true, that’s a definite red flag. If they’ve told you more than one something that you confirm not to be true… well, they’re going to have to have a very good track record from then on to be believed in anything.

Dave: But its true that Laura Bush did kill a close friend of hers in a bizarre auto accident when she was young, and I think the Bush’s kept a miscarriage or aborted fetus in a jar in their home for a spell…

In either, or both, of those crimes, do you think Glenn Beck was an accessory after the fact?

John Woodman:
You have to be willing to tolerate a certain amount of uncertainty, until you’re certain.

Unfortunately, being legitimately certain often takes more learning about an issue than most folks are willing to do.

The shortcut is: Find an “authority” you like and trust, and believe whatever he or she says.

The problem with that is there are “authorities” who a) don’t actually know themselves, they’re just posing as if they do; and b) some are actually willing to actively mislead you, and are very skilled at presenting themselves as benevolent, confident “leaders.”

Clue: If someone totally only presents one side of an issue, that’s a red flag.

Clue 2: If you find that someone has told you something that quite definitely turns out not to be true, that’s a definite red flag. If they’ve told you more than one something that you confirm not to be true… well, they’re going to have to have a very good track record from then on to be believed in anything.

Not really. I think you are confusing what actual vetting is with the ugly smear and gossip-mongering business of politics.

Vetting is about qualifications. The trash-politics is simply ugly pettiness.

As Obama was born in HI, his NBC status and therefore eligibility for the office stems from that alone. It makes no difference that his father was a cad or absent from his life. Nor would it matter if his father was never known at all.

Only petty people with ugliness in their own hearts would relish judging and condemning a kid for life circumstances of his parents. One can’t control their own birth and choose the parents they are born to.

Nor is it that unusual for the US to elect a President whose birth father was missing from the child’s life…or had other difficulties of a broken home at a young life. Within the modern era, both Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford instantly come to mind…

So no, those types of attacks and “digging” is NOT vetting at all. It has ZERO to do with either the eligibility or qualifications of someone to be President. Such muck racking is merely poo-flinging smears by immature and petty people. If somene has to pretend to be all “bothered” by some candidate’s childhood circumstances, then they are just looking for excuses to unreasonably dehumanize that candidate. Nothing more.

charo: Okay, I’ve got to bring out what you are missing.The information about the father is what is being alleged as false(by some).As in it was missing.As in her husband was a cad and didn’t show up for the birth (the fact that he was a cad is pretty much confirmed now) so he was left off?Maybe it was put in later?Who knows? None of this has to do with eligibility and in the past, the owner of the site would not allow that discussion because he considered it a smear. It does have to do with vetting.Vetting is ugly business

Misha, Obama inherited the Commissions act, he re signed the Patriot act, he tortures, and spies on the public, and he signed the NDAA, …in your American style knee jerk reaction to condemn “fascism” you could also be kind enough to include Obama.

G:
Not really.I think you are confusing what actual vetting is with the ugly smear and gossip-mongering business of politics.

Vetting is about qualifications.The trash-politics is simply ugly pettiness.

As Obama was born in HI, his NBC status and therefore eligibility for the office stems from that alone.It makes no difference that his father was a cad or absent from his life.Nor would it matter if his father was never known at all.

Only petty people with ugliness in their own hearts would relish judging and condemning a kid for life circumstances of his parents.One can’t control their own birth and choose the parents they are born to.

Nor is it that unusual for the US to elect a President whose birth father was missing from the child’s life…or had other difficulties of a broken home at a young life.Within the modern era, both Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford instantly come to mind…

So no, those types of attacks and “digging” is NOT vetting at all.It has ZERO to do with either the eligibility or qualifications of someone to be President.Such muck racking is merely poo-flinging smears by immature and petty people.If somene has to pretend to be all “bothered” by some candidate’s childhood circumstances, then they are just looking for excuses to unreasonably dehumanize that candidate.Nothing more.

People her assume I’m a birther, but I never said Obama was born overseas… In law, there can be a statute that runs on for many pages, and in the middle there can be an “and” …..out of these thousands of words, if you take out the “and” and then replace it with “or” you have probably just altered the general meaning of the law..This is something you guys should be aware of when reading my comments. Plus there are instances when carelessness enters the picture, but Im the one to blame then, not you.

Dave: the second question, business of father, is answered the same way- “other non white”.

No. The Business field is not a race identification field.

That field has a codeset that relates to business types and would include items such as ‘Banking’ or ‘Self Employed’ or ‘University’ or ‘Mining’, or ‘Manufacturing’.

The Nordyke Twins father said he was a ‘Doctor’ in ‘Private Practice’ and his business was coded as a ‘1’. Does that somehow mean that his Kind of Business or Industry was ‘white’? No. It means that for the box 12b there was a code set that indicated that ‘Private Practice’ should be coded as a ‘1’.

Each and every box has its own code set. But when the boxes encode the same type of information, such as race codes, it makes sense that the code sets for the different boxes should be the same.

The reason you won’t find the code sets in either the 1961 or 1968 FEDERAL specifications is because they are describing the record layout for the data file that the States are required to supply to the Feds. The Feds were apparently not interested in the Occupation or Business of the parents and so they did not provide a code set for it.

Hawai’i was interested that data, so they did encode it and store it in their data base. They would use the standard code sets that the Feds supplied, and develop their own codesets for data items that the Feds did not supply.

This is trivial for me to understand because I built exactly these kind of systems for much of my working life. I realize that you may have absolutely no experience in this, but it really isn’t that difficult a concept.

Suppose you are doing an inventory of your house and you have to encode the contents of drawers because you are moving out of your share house and the movers need to know what is in your bedroom. They don’t care about the kitchen drawers because they are only responsible for moving your bedroom materials. For the bedroom drawers, you have the following options:

On the other hand YOU are interested in the Kitchen drawers, because you have to split of the contents with your ex-roommates. So do you use the same set of codes the Moving Company provided you with? Does it make sense that a Kitchen Drawer would be used to store bras or love letters?

He signed an updated Patriot Act, true, a version that cleaned up a bit of the excrement. (but not, in my opinion anywhere enough).

Not ideal, but an improvement, and all that could be done in the political climate. The opposition filibuster anything and everything. To make any progress at all is a major accomplishment. Vetoing the updated bill and leaving the old POS Bill in effect was not an option.

Keith: Dave: the second question, business of father, is answered the same way- “other non white”.

No. The Business field is not a race identification field.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to be piling on, but you sounded like you were in such pain not understanding about different codesets for different contexts that I just had to try to address your confusion before I had finished the whole thread.

The others addressed sooner and probably better than I did, and apparently successfully. I am glad that is cleared up for you.

G: Vetting is about qualifications. The trash-politics is simply ugly pettiness.

Ideally, yes. But that is not the way it has ever been or will be. It’s not that for me, my immediate thought was let me know the exact birth circumstances of President Obama. As the issue unfolded, events surrounding the birth (not the conception) became important because of the questions about the birth certificate. John McCain’s birth certificate was questioned as well. If someone submitted a forged birth certificate, that would be important. That was the issue. It died down for me, but now there is a codes issue that for you is resolved. When the 1961 manual appears, which it will, then the proof will be there. There will be no speculation about that. If the Codes pan out to be as alleged here, then that is off the table (for me). I say that without reservation.

I don’t care if someone came from a broken home. That they rise above difficult circumstances should be admired.

In closing, thanks for portraying me in the worst light possible. I do good in the world, but I also make mistakes.

Really? By whom? No one saw it except one reporter. There were questions by a tiny minority as to whether someone born outside the US was eligible, but that wasn’t why McCain lost the election.

charo: If someone submitted a forged birth certificate, that would be important.

Explain to me why Hawaii would validate a forged birth certificate, please. I like fairy tales.

charo: It died down for me, but now there is a codes issue that for you is resolved. When the 1961 manual appears, which it will, then the proof will be there. There will be no speculation about that. If the Codes pan out to be as alleged here, then that is off the table (for me). I say that without reservation

Suppose you aren’t satisfied. What will you do? Not vote for Obama? Please tell me you would vote for him if the 1961 manual checked out. Then please tell me to watch out for flying pigs.

dave: Misha, Obama inherited the Commissions act, he re signed the Patriot act, he tortures, and spies on the public, and he signed the NDAA, …in your American style knee jerk reaction to condemn “fascism” you could also be kind enough to include Obama.

Can you document “torture” going on under Obama? Even Bush stopped waterboarding by about 2006.

As for spying on the public, let’s be clear that has been going on for ever. All governments monitor communications among the public and always have. The methods used change with technology, but the essentials remain the same. There are violent people out there who represent genuine threats. Some of them have middle eastern names and some of them have names like James Holmes or Timothy McVeigh. Sometimes lines may be crossed that shouldn’t be, but to say the government should do nothing to protect the public and only react after lives are lost isn’t right either.

American Mzungu: My daughter-in-law (and son) just had a baby.She was on bed-rest for the last three weeks.She’s a fitness freak.

From all accounts, Stanley Ann was a remarkable woman, but any reasonable scenario of a trip to Kenya in the late stages of pregnancy, giving birth there, and immediately traveling back to Hawaii would require physical and mental–not to mention financial–resources of which legends are made..

Is there a mother who could refrain from saying, “Son, after everything I went through to give birth to you in Africa….is it too much to ask that you clean up your room?”

You are simply delightful and a great source of information! I have enjoyed reading your comments. The essence of you is conveyed in the way you phrase your thoughts: kind, thoughtful, humorous intelligent. Reading your responses has been a privilege.

charo: You are simply delightful and a great source of information! I have enjoyed reading your comments. The essence of you is conveyed in the way you phrase your thoughts: kind, thoughtful, humorous intelligent. Reading your responses has been a privilege.

I too just wanted to say that having your unique background and perspective added to the dialogue here has been most welcome. She is right that you also have the gift of expressing yourself through a very enjoyable and entertaining to read writing style.

So I too wish to not only welcome you here, but also hope that you’ll keep visiting and contributing.

I couldn’t think of a better summary of your posts than calling them both delightful and a great source of information.

I completely agree. It is an overly simplistic notion to think that a new administration can just “magically” do whatever they want or easily change existing laws already in place. It completely ignores how our system of government functions – with limited powers constrained by various checks and balances of other branches of government, sadly often with people of opposing ideologies simply blocking and making things difficult for no other reason than to be difficult and try to prevent the other party from succeeding.

So yeah it is messy, imperfect, frustrating, inefficient, often gridlocked and add odds with itself, but THAT is the basic reality of how our system of government functions.

There are defects within not just the system, but within certain laws that most people are unhappy about. But nothing can be improved by ignoring the inescapable basic reality of the structure and its inherent pitfalls. Yet a lot of people simply like to throw tantrums for the sake of getting off on complaining in the context of glib and meainingless oversimplifications, instead of actually narrowing down into specific details of what they would like to see improved and how that realistically and pragmatically can be accomplished.

Real life and the process of governance will always be full of various sets of trade-offs. As populations grow and technology improves, the dynamics necessary to maintain a stable society likewise need to adapt. New policy solutions will always be frought with trade-offs in both benefits derived and new problems created. The pragmatic and smart approach is to then narrow down to deal with how to further improve on those specific problems, not just overreact and demand overthrowing the whole structure. That simply accomplishes nothing, except going backwards.

There simply are no “magic solutions” that can benefit and make everyone happy in reality.

Scientist: Can you document “torture” going on under Obama?Even Bush stopped waterboarding by about 2006.

As for spying on the public, let’s be clear that has been going on for ever.All governments monitor communications among the public and always have.The methods used change with technology, but the essentials remain the same.There are violent people out there who represent genuine threats. Some of them have middle eastern names and some of them have names like James Holmes or Timothy McVeigh. Sometimes lines may be crossed that shouldn’t be, but to say the government should do nothing to protect the public and only react after lives are lost isn’t right either.

Sorry Charo, but my reply post intentionally discussed the diference in vetting and petty smears in general terms and does NOT include one single word accusatory word directed at you specifically.

However, you tend to read a reply like that and take it personally. I can only conclude from such a reaction, that when one takes such a response personally, it is because that person knows deep down that they are guilty of the very petty behaviors that are being described.

We all are human and make mistakes, Charo. Our good works are simply not justification or free passes to free ourselves from accountability on our faults and when we fall. They are merely demonstrable proof that we are capable of being better than that and should always hold ourselves accountable to strive for higher standards and seek to improve our own faults.

So, if YOU happen to see yourself reflected in petty behaviors described, YOU should first give yourself credit for recognizing that this is an area of weakness for you and then should self-reflect on how you can strive to do better in the future and work to hold yourself accountable to higher standards, in line with the tenents and inspirations of your faith.

Simply lashing out and whining that someone else noticed poor behavior that you recognize you tend to exhibit is not the answer. It is simply an immature emotional dodge from taking personal responsibility and striving to be a better person.

Charo, you and I have a long history of dialogue on here. Don’t lose sight that despite our areas of disagreement and where you feel “chastised” by me, that my overall opinion of you is a POSITIVE one. I have always seen you as a “good person” overall and I get a lot of flack on here for treating you different than I do most of the “Birther” posters that show up and spout off. For me, the things you’ve shared and your ability to dialogue has earned a level of respect, credibility and demonstrated your humanity. So when I respond in a “chastizing” way to you, it is because I *do* care and have faith in you and KNOW that you ARE capable of conveying yourself and behaving better and more honestly than certain of your posts reveal.

charo: In closing, thanks for portraying me in the worst light possible. I do good in the world, but I also make mistakes.

G: So, if YOU happen to see yourself reflected in petty behaviors described,

I don’t actually, G. For some reason, this site brings out the worst in me. You are not a psychoanalyst, at least not that I am aware of. Maybe you just play one at OCT? I actually have a pretty full life that doesn’t leave that much room for pettiness. I generally have gotten along much better with men during my years of employment (with exceptions of course) because they tend not to be petty. I think men offer more challenging discussions without the cattiness.

American Mzungu: I appreciate the comments of welcome and encouragement.I’ll try not to threadjack the discussions with random stories about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or dodging bullets fired by Idi Amin’s goons.

Dr.C. usually has an open thread going on. I can’t speak for him, but I can’t imagine him objecting to a few stories.

Bravo Scientist! I agree completely with both the tone and points in your responses here.

It is patently DISINGENOUS insinuations like this from Charo, which really disappoint me.

I don’t know why she keeps devolving to having the need to cast such petty aspersions, PARTICULARLY on stances where we all know that SHE herself knows better than what she is saying.

I mean to throw out that whole silly McCain excuse is extremely hollow and an intentional wilful act of dishonesty from her. She’s been around and kept aware of this whole Birther saga almost as much as many of us have. This isn’t a new claim, NOR is it one that hasn’t been addressed many times before. So she knows fully well the detailed FACTS that ONLY a reporter saw McCain’s BC and that the ONLY folks who challenged it were other Birthers. Therefore, she is being particularly intentionally deceptive in trying to insinuate a fake controversy that she is fully aware doesn’t even exist.

So yeah, all the points you called her out on amount to nothing more than obvious and INTENTIONAL Concern Trolling tactics, with ZERO sincerity behind those words.

She doesn’t like Obama. We get that. She doesn’t have to vote for him – and has ZERO intention of doing so. We are fully aware of that and respect her right to not vote for him.

Why can’t she just be an honest and sincere person and ADMIT these things upfront, instead of coming up with silly smears and excuse arguments, that we all know she is fully aware are nothing more than hollow smears…

She really needs to seriously reflect upon her personal behaviors and actions and accept responsibility for her own continued wilful acts of sin and try better to hold herself up to the purported tenets of her own faith. Both deception and self-deception fly in the face of everything that Jesus’ parables try to teach.

Scientist: charo: John McCain’s birth certificate was questioned as well.Really? By whom? No one saw it except one reporter. There were questions by a tiny minority as to whether someone born outside the US was eligible, but that wasn’t why McCain lost the election.

charo: If someone submitted a forged birth certificate, that would be important.

Explain to me why Hawaii would validate a forged birth certificate, please. I like fairy tales.

charo: It died down for me, but now there is a codes issue that for you is resolved. When the 1961 manual appears, which it will, then the proof will be there. There will be no speculation about that. If the Codes pan out to be as alleged here, then that is off the table (for me). I say that without reservation

Suppose you aren’t satisfied. What will you do? Not vote for Obama? Please tell me you would vote for him if the 1961 manual checked out. Then please tell me to watch out for flying pigs.

Good idea! I agree. The Occasional Open Thread is a perfect forum for such things.

As with any thread, we can often get distracted and go off on side-tangents. Sometimes Doc is helpful enough to move our O/T conversations to the Open Thread, but that’s putting a lot of work on his shoulders, where we should simply try to do better to just move the O/T conversations to there ourselves.

He’s created that Occasional Open Thread sandbox for our benefit for just that very purpose.

charo: Dr.C. usually has an open thread going on.I can’t speak for him, but I can’t imagine him objecting to a few stories.

I don’t know why you feel such an urge to beat me with words, judging me as committing such heinous acts. If you want to throw around the term “histrionics,” check out your own comment, even emphasized with bold print. Please don’t throw religion in my face. I don’t do it to you or anyone else. I have mentioned what my faith is, but I don’t proselytize. Of course I am not voting for Obama. I didn’t realize that was a prerequisite for discussion. Maybe you and scientist can do a chest bump.

G: It is patently DISINGENOUS insinuations like this from Charo, which really disappoint me.
I don’t know why she keeps devolving to having the need to cast such petty aspersions, PARTICULARLY on stances where we all know that SHE herself knows better than what she is saying.

I don’t want to hurt Charo’s feelings, because we’ve had some light-hearted exchanges, but I agree that she sometimes comes off as a professional nit-picker, one who would, for example, relish exploring the significance that the background in Obama’s birth certificate appears as light green when it should be pale green. She wants the minor issues she raises to be taken seriously, and then becomes personally offended when her concerns are dismissed or critiqued.

Essentially, I don’t think she likes Obama, and that probably motivates some of her behavior.

LOL! Good response! You are correct, I am certainly not an trained psychoanalyst. But let’s be completely honest about human nature for a second – we ALL make “psychoanalytical” inferences based on combining past experience with other human interactions whenever we encounter other people. That is a simple fundamental reality to any human encounter and as soon as you interact and put yourself out there with other people, they can only draw conclusions based on what they know and what you present. We all do it. That is where continued dialogue becomes helpful to explain, correct or enhance perceptional conclusions drawn.

I appreciate you explaining that you feel this site brings out the worst in you. That comes across as a very open and honest statement and I think it makes total sense. Many of the interests, backgrounds and personal views/ideologies expressed here are quite different from your own, so visiting here can seem like traveling to a strange foreign land at best and seem like hostile territory at worst. I think it is perfectly reasonable for you to have a gut feel of guarded defensiveness, bordering on trigger-itch combativeness, just by coming out of your comfort zone and going here.

The advantage of internet blogs is that we all have the luxury of defensively gut-reacting to something…but having the ability to review and reflect before we actually post a response. Trust me, I certainly need to work to do much better at doing that too… basic human nature for everyone. But I do hold myself accountable and responsible for anything I say and do and spend a lot of time in self-reflection and self-criticism for where I fall short or could have done/said something better that I did.

I also agree with your generalized assessment that (especially in the workplace), there tends to be more pettiness and cattiness whenever more women are present and that the dynamic is generally different amongst men. That being said, rest assured that there are lots of petty men out there and that all of us, myself included, can easily fall into the trap of thinking or emotionally behaving in petty ways at times. Again, I think that is simply built into the human condition…but something we are all capable of getting better at dealing with, as long as we care enough to try.

I can also think of numerous personal experience examples of women in the workplace who don’t fall under that generalization of petty/catty behavior, even when they are stuck in an work-envioronment that is rife with it. Again, I simply think that is a reflection of different individuals being self-aware enough to work towards not falling into such petty/catty emotional traps and those that only reinforce their own bad habits by retaining an immature mentality of entitlement, with very little sense of personal responsibility or accountability.

charo: I don’t actually, G.For some reason, this site brings out the worst in me. You are not a psychoanalyst, at least not that I am aware of. Maybe you just play one at OCT? I actually have a pretty full life that doesn’t leave that much room for pettiness.I generally have gotten along much better with men during my years of employment (with exceptions of course) because they tend not to be petty.I think men offer more challenging discussions without the cattiness.

charo: It was the Hollander certificate that was in dispute, not the one the reporter showed .

The Hollander certificate was not McCain’s. If someone made a phony driver’s license with your name on it , your driver’s license would not be in dispute.

But let’s cut to the chase and stop mincing words and dancing and playing with pencil marks. Regarding Obama’s certificate, Hawaii has said more times than I can count and in more ways than I can count that they issued a real paper document and the information on it regarding his birth is correct. They even confirmed this to the Arizona Sec of State. Logic then says there are only 3 possibilities regarding the document the Whte House has shown:

1. It is an electronic image of Obama’s true birth certificate (with inevitable artefacts of scanning) and he was born in Hawaii.
2. It is a forgery, but with all the correct information and he was born in Hawaii.
3. It is a forgery and Hawaii is part of a mammoth conspiracy and is covering up,along with the INS, IRS, SSA, CIA, FBI, SSS, PDQ, JZZ and every agency of government under any number of Administrations since 1961.

You should come clean and tell us without equivocation which of those you believe. If you believe 2, please explain why anyone would forge a document with all the correct information, rather than just using the one Hawaii gave them. And if you believe 3, please explain what the goal of this conspiracy is and why they needed to bother with Obama. I mean a conspiracy that powerful could surely get what they wanted with Hillary or McCain or Romney in the White House, just as they did with Bush I and II, Clinton, Reagan, etc.

I don’t mean to sound hostile, but it’s time you laid it all on the table without weasel words or equivocation. It might even make you feel good.

But you know darn well that Hollander is just another Birther. He may have casted a wider net and went after both Obama *and* McCain… but then quite a few of these Birthers do, especially what’s become the “2 citizen parent” nonsense crowd.

Why bring up McCain as an example at all, unless you are attempting to intentionally insinuate a false eqivocation?

There simply is no comparative correlation of any set of people, who aren’t Birthers, that have pursued any similar style serious attacks on the citizenship and eligibility of any other candidate. The only ones who also pursued this line of attack on McCain (or lately Rubio, etc.) are those that are already in the irrational Birther camp.

Therefore, there is NO practical point in making those type of McCain insinuations, beyond just trying to throw out a glib unsupportable smear in an attempt to distract/dodge away from other points. If “unintentional”, it is certainly an “unthinking” quip at best and therefore still disingenuous in terms of its lack of supporting rationnale.

charo: G: I mean to throw out that whole silly McCain excuse is extremely hollow and an intentional wilful act of dishonesty from her.
This what I remembered and did not purposefully and intentionally make a dishonest statement. It was the Hollander certificate that was in dispute, not the one the reporter showed .

Isn’t that what is done here? The issue that I thought was the serious issue is the code. It is the subject of various threads. That necessarily will involve some side issues. I was supplying a logical reason why, if the Code 9 were unstated, then the father was not named. That to me is a form of vetting, and it is not intrusive. The long form was already released. If you don’t care one iota about the issue, I am not going to degrade you here or anywhere else.

You have accepted that the Code means as Dr.C. has determined. I want to see the 1961 manual. That is a very tangible piece of information. I thought the long form itself really ended it. It turns out, it didn’t. You may call that nitpicking. That won’t hurt my feelings. I expect that people in politics are in the big leagues. It isn’t fair. It stinks. George Bush’s service was questioned and we all remember that fiasco with the false documents. The people who were not going to vote for Bush had a right to know whether documents were falsified, just as the people who were planning to vote for him.

charo: Isn’t that what is done here? The issue that I thought was the serious issue is the code. It is the subject of various threads. That necessarily will involve some side issues. I was supplying a logical reason why, if the Code 9 were unstated, then the father was not named. That to me is a form of vetting, and it is not intrusive. The long form was already released. If you don’t care one iota about the issue, I am not going to degrade you here or anywhere else.You have accepted that the Code means as Dr.C. has determined. I want to see the 1961 manual. That is a very tangible piece of information. I thought the long form itself really ended it. It turns out, it didn’t. You may call that nitpicking. That won’t hurt my feelings. I expect that people in politics are in the big leagues. It isn’t fair. It stinks. George Bush’s service was questioned and we all remember that fiasco with the false documents. The people who were not going to vote for Bush had a right to know whether documents were falsified, just as the people who were planning to vote for him.

The Bush documents were not verified by the state or federal agency that issued them. Obama’s birth certificate is, multiple times and ways. That is night vs day. I asked above that you choose one of the only 3 logical possibilities that exist here. Will you do so? Is there a giant conspiracy or not?

Since the State of Hawaii verifies the birth certificate, whatever marks are on it are the ones THEY put there, whether they agree wiith Doc’s manual, Corsi’s manual or no manual at all. Or there is a ginormous conspiracy. There are no other possibilities.

I don’t know why you feel such an urge to beat me with words, judging me as committing such heinous acts. If you want to throw around the term “histrionics,” check out your own comment, even emphasized with bold print. Please don’t throw religion in my face. I don’t do it to you or anyone else. I have mentioned what my faith is, but I don’t proselytize. Of course I am not voting for Obama. I didn’t realize that was a prerequisite for discussion. Maybe you and scientist can do a chest bump.

Is it necessary to beat up on Charo folks? She’s a long-time poster. She doesn’t drop birther memes and exit quickly. She adds to the conversation. Don’t be so quick to jump. And please avoid religion-bashing, it’s one of the things that turns religious people from all sides off your message.

However, we now know that Obama (Sr.) did not leave the U.S. during this period of time and Ann would have had to make this trip alone. That would have been an unbelievable amount of stress on a teenager late in pregnancy. As you note, there would have been a lot of preparation. I remember those shots, which unfortunately did not prevent me from getting malaria (because I didn’t take the choroquin in a “malaria-free zone”. Obama Sr. would have had to write his family to get their approval. I think they would have given it, and started to make preparations on their end. I think they would have welcomed Ann as an honored guest, under the appropriate protocols for Luo culture. (I was welcomed in a neighboring tribe, so I’m not sure of the Luo protocols, but I wouldn’t be surprised at a similar welcome. I was accompanied from Nairobi by a fellow about my age, who took me there and walked me through my social responsibilities, step-by-step, day-by-day. I was told on day three that tomorrow I was expected to give each of the five wifes and the clan leader appropriate gifts of appreciation. Thanks for the advance warning, Charles. I’ll run right out to Walmart and get something. I think they would have done this, despite the first wife and two children. Polygamy was practiced by the Obama clan.

But I digress. I think you got the trip to Europe about right. Ann might have taken Icelandic Air across the Atlantic because it was the cheapest airline in 1961. About $440, if I remember correctly. A prop plan landing in Iceland and Glasgow. The flight to East Africa would have involved several stops. In 1965 we stopped in Rome and Benghazi, then at Entebbe (Uganda). She would have been met by a family member who could get her to Kogelo–a family member who had enough experience in bridging the culture gap between village culture and a American visitor–someone with English skills and experience in solving logistics problems.

You did well to get Ann on the East African railroad. She would have initially gone back to Nairobi, maybe do a little animal sightseeing at the game reserve outside Nairobi. Then the attempt to get on the plane, refused. That would have really created a crisis, and somebody had to help her figure out what to do. The reasonable plan would have been to go back to Kisumu and have the baby there, but going to Mombasa to catch a ship back home would have been a really dumb idea. It would have been a “slow boat to China” back to Honolulu, with the baby born en route. Birther lore has the baby coming early, but there are no time frames that make sense if there is a boat trip back. There is some serious money involved in all of this. You did a nice job just estimating the cost of communicating back to Honolulu, and there would have been lots of long cables involved along the way. This was before the day of credit cards that could be payed off later. She would have needed some serious cash for unbudgeted expenses throughout a stay.

Back to Nairobi after a stay in the hospital? The long reverse journey back with a newborn? Let’s talk about diaper logistics and feeding, shall we?

I thought Mr. Woodman did a good job of imagining a conversation between Ann and her parents before the trip. Can you imagine the conversation after the trip? There would have been stories. Even if you assume the stories were supressed by Ann and her family, they would have become legends in Kogelo. This is an oral history culture. When Obama (Jr.) made his pilgrimage to Kogelo when he was a young man, Sara and everyone in the compound would have told him stories. The stories would have gotten better with age.

Whatever4: Is it necessary to beat up on Charo folks? She’s a long-time poster. She doesn’t drop birther memes and exit quickly. She adds to the conversation. Don’t be so quick to jump. And please avoid religion-bashing, it’s one of the things that turns religious people from all sides off your message.

Don’t go, Charo.

Wow, whatever, I appreciate that. I know it sounds cheesy to say “I need to spend more time with my family” but I can get so caught up here that I have kids clamoring for my attention! I have a little down time and really enjoy the give and take, but when it gets ugly, it’s not so enjoyable. I really have vowed not to come back for both reasons, but I really do enjoy discussion. I have always played Devil’s Advocate, so to speak, my whole life.

Your comment means a lot to me because I know that you are a regular here also. I wonder what will happen to everyone here after Obama is out of office, whenever that may be?

Scientist: I don’t get your point abouttthe father being “unstated”.The father IS stated.It is Barack Obama Sr.You really don’t make much sense.

What is being claimed is that somebody falsely put in the father’s name and occupation because if code 9 in the Hawaiian manual means not stated, then the fields should have nothing typed in. That is the whole issue being raised. That is the reason why I brought up vetting. I know in your opinion that even if true (that the codes do show that the fields should be blank), it is irrelevant. It may be irrelevant to you and others, but it would be relevant to some. I don’t see that as a conjugal issue.

First, if the manual is found, then the headlines would be so detrimental that I can’t see Dr. Corsi (or Mr. Zullo for that matter) ever recovering. Even though Dr. C. thinks he is already finished, there is still enough wiggle room now. There won’t be any if the manual is produced and it proves 100% fraud.

donna: now (as a leo & female), tell me how pretty that tanzanite is that you bought for your “wife to be”

So I walked into one of the best jewerly shops in Nairobi and put my briefcase on the counter and said “Tanzanite”. The Asian owner asked, “Buying or selling?”

We talked and I described the setting I wanted and he said come back in five days. It wasn’t quite what I wanted and he said, “No problem, we can sell it to someone else.” We tried again, and it was accepted by my wife-to-be when I got back to the U.S.

I had the wedding band inscribed with a Swahili line that translates roughly to “I love you, Sweetheart.” She’s still wearing it.

Thanks again for your insight to the imagined saga. When I first thought about how it would be possible for young girl going to Kenya, this is what came to mind in favor of the idea.

1) The young girl would have to have an extraordinary spirit, a streak of rebellion and independence. That seemed to fit.

2) Did other American mothers manage to make it to Kenya? I thought of the missionaries, and how they had children there. This seemed to fit but not quite as well because they had lots of planning for the trip and did not need to leave immediately after having a child. Nursing the baby would probably not be an issue and diapers? Well, that could be handled as well. We mothers are simply spoiled nowadays, but most of us have found ourselves in a fix now and again regarding the diaper issue. We improvise. Yet, there was a video of a supposed friend of Stanley Ann’s from Washington (which non-birthers have discredited) who said that she didn’t have very much knowledge of caring for a baby.

3) Money of course. Where would that have come from? A benefactor of some kind.

…

I hope you will bear with this interruption (and scattered thoughts) because I wanted to respond more. Just on a quick note, there are more negatives to be presented which outweigh the few positives in my extremely amateur analysis.

charo: What is being claimed is that somebody falsely put in the father’s name and occupation

Maybe i’m dense, but who would have done that and why? I don’t see a coherent story here. Could you go through the scenario that you are claiming step-by-step for those of us who aren’t too bright? Include as much detail as you can, please. Thanks

Scientist: Maybe i’m dense, but who would have done that and why? I don’t see a coherent story here.Could you go through the scenario that you are claiming step-by-step for those of us who aren’t too bright?Include as much detail as you can, please.Thanks

No, I won’t. I have done it before in the past and it lead to much dissension. There is really no need anyways. If the manual shows that Dr. C. is right, whamo! CCP nailed 100%. If the Code shows otherwise? We’ll see then.

You bet I am. You and the CCP are up to your necks in quicksand with an idiiotic story that someone would name their kid So-and-So Jr and then say “I don’t know who the Dad is”. You have to admit that is really dumb..

Scientist: You bet I am.You and the CCP are up toyour necks in quicksand with an idiiotic story that someone would name their kid So-and-So Jr and then say “I don’t know who the Dad is”.You have to admit that is really dumb..

Not stated does not necessarily mean the mother doesn’t know. It means not stated, for whatever reason the mother choose not to state. There has to be a way to document that scenario for a mother who didn’t state who the father was, whether or not Stanley Ann ever existed. Dr. C. surmises “x” was used.

Listen buddy: Don’t claim me as part of the CCP. I don’t know what the manual says. They say they do.

charo: Not stated does not necessarily mean the mother doesn’t know. It means not stated, for whatever reason the mother choose not to state. There has to be a way to document that scenario for a mother who didn’t state who the father was, whether or not Stanley Ann ever existed. Dr. C. surmises “x” was used.

Sure there are cases where a mother will truly not know or will refuse to say. But when the mother is married to Joe Blow and she names the kid Joe Blow, Jr. then she is telling the entire world that Joe Blow is the dad. So, there may be cases where the father is put down as unknown, but that is simply impossible in the President’s case (or George Bush’s for that matter) because they are named AFTER their fathers.

charo: First, if the manual is found, then the headlines would be so detrimental that I can’t see Dr. Corsi (or Mr. Zullo for that matter) ever recovering. Even though Dr. C. thinks he is already finished, there is still enough wiggle room now. There won’t be any if the manual is produced and it proves 100% fraud.

Either way, Corsi, Zullo and the CCP are on the defensive, as one of their major ‘disclosures’ appears to, once again, be based on flawed analysis and assumptions.

Now, they may still be correct but so far they have failed to provide any convincing evidence to support their claims, and the fact that they used 1968 manual data totally undermines their credibility. Not that I believe they had much left of it, but now it will be hard for even the most determined birther to continue to claim that the Posse showed that the ‘9’ on the document meant ‘not stated’ and thus that the document is false.

Of course, logically speaking this does not make sense. Obama Jr was given the same name as his father, so why would the father not have been entered? And of course from the newspaper announcements we know that the father was in fact known.

Oh, yeah! I thought about that back way back when. I am under the impression that companies like Nestle were pushing baby formula on the hospitals in Africa pretty heavily back then. The Nestle boycott in the 70’s (IIRC) was specifically due to this fact. The hospitals would discourage breast feeding in favor of formula, the mother would take the baby home with an introductory supply of formula and then mix it up with contaminated water, and possibly cease lactating forcing a continued dependence on formula. Breast feeding would have helped build up the child’s immunities, formula feeding helped destroy them.

As a Westerner, Stanley Ann would have insisted clean water for her formula preparation. How easy would that have been to accomplish, I wonder?

misha: American Mzungu: Would you mind if I draft a scenario and you (and others) can critique it?
I gladly would.

DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT

The nurse walks into Ann’s room on the afternoon of the second day, bringing back the baby from the nursery. Nurse talk…”How are you getting along with your new baby, Stanley? Your first? Was that your husband I saw coming out of your room this morning?” Nurse getting down to business…”We’ll need to get some information for the records. I’ll leave the form here and you can fill it in when you have a chance. I’ll pick it up later.” Nurse picks up baby Obama two hours later to return him to the nursery and asks, “Have you had a chance to work on filling out the form, yet?” “Well, you can give it to the nurse coming in on the next shift or I’ll pick it up when I get back on duty tomorrow.”

Stanley fills in most of it that night, but leaves blank the entry for father’s race, because she knows Obama (Sr.) has strong opinions about being an African from Africa, but she feels it might seem a strange and unfamiliar answer in Hawaii. So she leaves it blank, intending to confirm later with her husband that he wants her to put down “African”. He doesn’t come in that night has he had promised, and Stanley leaves the form on the stand next to her bed. She is asleep in the morning when the nurse comes in, and the nurse gives it a brief look to make certain it is signed. It seems to be filled out, but she doesn’t see that the father’s race wasn’t filled out. Walks out without waking Stanley Ann.

It gets processed at the hospital: typed out, and signed by the doctor. Off to the registrar for processing. It gets coded, and the key punch operator sees no entry for father’s race, and punches 9, for no data, but calls a supervisor after thinking about it because it is a field that should be filled out. The supervisor puts the form aside and says, “We need to get this information filled in” and she calls the hospital, but Stanley has already checked out. The supervisor asks the hospital if they have a telephone number to contact the father or mother, and the get in touch with Stanley Ann, who says, “Put down African”, which the supervisor has a clerk type in, and put into the binder with the rest of the batch.

charo: Arthur: she sometimes comes off as a professional nit-picker,
Isn’t that what is done here? The issue that I thought was the serious issue is the code.

Absolutely, nit-picking goes on here all the time. By “professional” I was trying to imply a level of concern that appears to go beyond commonsense or necessity. The state of Hawaii has certified Obama’s birth certificate; unless you think the DoH is lying, I don’t see the necessity to argue the accuracy of the code.

Keith: The hospitals would discourage breast feeding in favor of formula, the mother would take the baby home with an introductory supply of formula

After she gets out of the hospital in Mombasa, she goes back to the hotel room where Sarah and the helper/interpreter is staying. They buy baby bottles, baby clothes, blankets, all the necessities. They mix up enough formula and to get baby Obama back to Nairobi. They check into another hotel while Ann and helper make arrangements for plane tickets back home. Sarah stays with the baby while they are gone. Stanley buys a week’s worth of diapers and formula to get back to Honolulu. They pack some of the necessities in luggage and some on carry on–enough for the duration of each leg. For the next six days she is making up formula and changing the baby every two and a half hours. In the plane, in the airports, With a very cranky, crying baby. With no baby caring skills. With the blessings of each airline.

Mzungu: There is another issue. How to get the baby back to the US. Even newborns need documents. If the baby is a US citizen, the US embassy could add the baby to her passport, but, if the birth happened in Kenya the baby is not a US citizen. So the birthers posit a phony registration back in Hawaii, then the Dunhams send the certficate to Stanley Ann in Kenya. The problem there, besides the time that would take, is how would she explain how she got that baby from Hawaii into Kenya and through the various places in Europe in transit? Hmm…

The other alternatiive is to get a UK and colonies passport for the baby. Not sure how she does that without the father there. And then to bring a non-citizen baby into the US with her she would need a visa from the US Embassy. Again a problem. So the birthers say she smuggled the baby in through Canada or Mexico. Problem is, they required passports for overseas arrivals just like the US does,

So we are left with having a ship pull up to the 3 mile limit off Hawaii and mom and baby have to swim or transfer to a canoe. Sounds plausible, eh?

Keith: The problem is that Charo doesn’t seem to be talking about the father’s RACE field. She seems to be talking about the father’s NAME.

I didn’t watch the Arpio press conference, but I thought they (only) focused on an inconsistency with the field with father’s race. Is there any other item that the CCP claimed was inconsistent with the coding? If so, I could try to revise. Help me out here, Charo.

Your explanation could become the adopted narrative because it is plausible and dignified (if it even turns out that 9 means unstated.) There are some not so positive bits of information that could lead to a supposed different scenario than you posit. This is not the worst fact because it may be just a cultural misunderstanding, but have you wondered when Stanley Ann first knew that her husband had another wife? Do you find the evidence plausible that suggests the couple never lived together as husband and wife after the birth of the child?

These matters are delicate. Now that I think more on it, even if the Codes do show 9 means “unstated,” there will never be full closure (if your scenario is a truly realistic one as regards the technicalities of the preparation of the certificate).

BTW, when I started analyzing whether it would be even remotely possible for a young pregnant woman to go to Kenya for the birth of her child, it was with the assumption that her husband would have been with her. Because he was not (as was positively proven later by tracking his travel), the negatives so much outweigh the positives that the discussion really becomes moot, particularly with every added comment you make! Did any woman nurse her child back then or where they all shamefully duped into believing formula was the way to go (when breastfeeding is free)? I am showing my bias toward nursing here.